The Line of Kings
by teh Michiru
Summary: Exploring the lives of the Noldorin princes who would eventually produce the final High King of the Noldor in Middle-earth.
1. Table of Contents

Having written this monstrosity, I'm note sure what to say about it. Bluntly, it is the result of a long-standing affair between myself and Angaráto/Angrod, my favorite character in _The Silmarillion. _Thoroughly disatisfied with the pitance of fanfics out there featuring him, in which he plays second-fiddle to his siblings and other, more illustrious relatives, I set out to bring _my_ Angaráto to life, the one lurking behind the few words Tolkien wrote. Like my other great loves, the Fëanorians, not everything that came to light was flattering, but (I find) it was real, and meant something, and hopefully those who read this will too.

I should also acknowledge the contribution made by the Silmarillion Writers' Guild's Season of Writing Dangerously, which challanged authors to set a goal and reach it between June 21 and September 23; without that impetus, most if not all, of these pieces would have languished in the back of my brain, never to see the light of day. For any fans who have not yet heard of the SWG, check it out; it's a wonderful place. (For anyone who cares, I met all my goals for the SoWD.)

For anyone out there who read(s) my other works and fears that the update rate for this piece will be the same as for my other (ongoing) stories, let me lay your fears to rest: this is a completed work. That's right: every chapter (with the exception of the things marked as separate stories) has been written. I'll post a chapter a week, barring Unforseen Complications (they can happen). The other exception is this week, as I find the idea of posting nothing but the table of contents a bit silly. :)

Asterisks mark mature-themed pieces.

_Iron and Fire VY 1350-1400 (separate story)_  
>I Her Love a Shield VY 1415<br>II Reaching Out VY 1490  
>III Estrangement VY 1493<br>IV ***One Last Meeting VY 1495 - Marked mature for moderate, non-graphic sexual content.  
>V Fate Decided VY 1495<br>VI Fruition FA 5  
>VII The Warren FA 6<br>VIII A Small Favor FA 54  
>IX Fleeting Reconciliation FA 60<br>X A Linguist's Rebellion FA 67  
>XI Academic Discussion FA 70<br>XII The High Prince FA 71  
>XIII That Which is Valued Greatly FA 90<br>XIV High Cuisine FA 100  
><em>I Firin Tuilérë FA 101 (separate story)<br>_XV Midsummer Night's Dance FA 240  
>XVI Semantics FA 263<br>XVII Warden of Tol Sirion FA 265  
>XVIII Far-reaching Consequence FA 355<br>XIX Birthright FA 361  
>XX The Hand of Fate FA 383<br>XXI Dagor Bragollach FA 455  
><em>***The Fall of Minas Tirith FA 455 (separate story) -<em> Marked mature for battle gore.  
>XXII Artanáro FA 455<br>XXIII Things Fall Apart FA 465  
>XXIV Ereinion FA 465<p>

For FanFiction dot Net: in the case of this story, I find that a Table of Contents _is _critical story input, as it gives readers an idea of what they're walking in to in terms of rating. The whole story does not deserve a mature rating, but some of the chapters will, so I want that to be clear before those chapters are opened.


	2. I: Her Love a Shield

Summary: "And indeed Melkor was false […] But the Vanyar would have no part with him." Eldalôtë warns her betrothed not to seek the counsel of Melkor. _Morgoth's Ring_, 94.

* * *

><p>Vanyarin Year 1415<p>

At first, Angaráto had given no thought to Melkor's release, other than to note that Grandfather's eyes darkened whenever it came up. And, though he knew the restored Vala was in Valmar receiving audiences seeking his wisdom, it had not occurred to him that Melkor might have any knowledge he was searching for: the Teleri went to Melkor for some news of their loved ones in Endor; the Noldor asked after deep secrets of the earth and beyond.

But Angaráto was a linguist, not a smith or a chemist or a philosopher, or even a historian, and he could see no reason why he would need to consult with the Vala, so Melkor's release went unremarked for a time.

* * *

><p>"Angamaitë, will you be visiting Melkor when you return to Valmar?" Eldalôtë froze in the seat next to him, fork poised over her plate, eyes darting sharply from him to Ancáno, smirking faintly across the table.<p>

"I see no reason to," he said. "What do I care for the secrets of gold and gemstones?"

"Haven't you heard?" Ancáno wondered. "Lindalëar sought him out last year for a more comprehensive understanding of the tongue of the Valar. Unlike his kin, Melkor does not refuse the teaching because he fears our ears will find the lesson unpalatable." Eldalôtë deliberately set down her utensils and sat back in her chair. A ways down, Amarië seemed to have caught some of the conversation also; she was frowning at Ancáno, answering Ingoldo's teasing flirtations distractedly. Angaráto shrugged, brushing his fingertips across the back of Eldalôtë's wrist briefly.

"I have no interest in the tongue of the Valar. If I need to speak with them, I can do so in Quenya."

"Yes," Ancáno drawled, bored. "You would rather concern yourself with the _much_ more useful _theoretical_ language of the Avari in Endor." The Noldo's friends laughed, and Angaráto tightened his smile but didn't say a word. Ancáno's father was one of Grandfather's chief advisors, so he could not afford to return the insult, or even press his status to demand respect.

"But don't you see?" Ancáno persisted when he got no rise, leaning forward.

"See what?" Eldalôtë dropped her hands to her lap as he answered, fingers clenched in a twisting knot.

"He was _there,_" Ancáno exhaled, as though completely overwhelmed with exasperation. "He met with your precious Avari; spoke with them! Surely, in the interest of academic accuracy, if nothing else, you should not ignore the wealth of information available to you."

"Information that would be limited to whatever abhorrent interactions Melkor had with our ancestors, and desperately out of date besides," Angaráto countered, and Ancáno threw up his hands in defeat, turning to nettle someone else. But Eldalôtë did not touch her silverware again, and Angaráto poked listlessly at his meal for the duration of the banquet, for the seed had been planted and his mind would not rest. Ancáno's question seemed to echo to the beat of his friends' mockery. Limited or not, out of date or not, first-hand knowledge of the language of the moriquendi would revolutionize his field of study. How long before someone else—another linguist— had the same thought as Ancáno?

* * *

><p>"Melinnon," Eldalôtë said abruptly, as they strolled together through Indis' garden in the gentle light of Telperion after the banquet's end.<p>

"Yes?" he asked heavily, drawn out of his thoughts.

"There are those—" She stopped, seemingly at a loss for words, her hand suddenly trembling in his. He folded her in his arms without hesitation, increasingly concrete musings pushed aside.

They stood there, silent, for time indeterminable, even her honor guard forgotten, and in the silence her mind touched his, wordless but comforting, and some of the tension, the residual irritation produced by Ancáno, faded. He breathed in the distinct smell of her hair, somehow Treelight and music all in one, and relaxed.

"Ever have you been my greatest strength, Súlendë," he whispered against her hair, ignoring the scrutiny he could feel as the guard shifted impatiently, suspiciously, in the background. "I should be a pale imitation of myself without you." Eldalôtë laughed softly, the echoing strains of bells far off.

"And do you think, having known you, that I should be the same without you?" she teased. "You will always be my great dreamer, Melinnon." His lips quirked painfully, sweet souring in his throat.

"Only ever a dreamer, I'm afraid," he murmured, trying to cast the phrase jokingly with the derision of Grandfather's court still ringing in his ears. Eldalôtë sighed, stepping back and tugging him to a bench overhung with lilac.

"What, precisely, is your grievance with dreams?" she probed, resting her head on his shoulder, fingers tracing up and down his sleeve in slow, elongated circles.

"Nothing, so long as they give results."

"Those words are not your own," she noted, something like sorrow whispering at his mind.

"But they are true," he sighed. "Princes of the Noldor aren't expected to dream, but to do. Look at my cousins, at my siblings—I doubt I could list all their accomplishments had I an Age undisturbed to record them."

"And you think Melkor's counsel could help you to do as they have done," she stated, flatly enough for him to wince at the unvoiced disappointment.

"A first-hand account of the evolutionary path of Primitive Quenya would do much to resolve certain conflicts among scholars," he defended weakly. Eldalôtë was quiet for a time afterwards, but the stilling of her hand on his arm was answer enough.

"In Valmar we keep Melkor out of love for Manwë," she said at last, voice low, "but we like him not. There is something… creeping about him that leaves bile in the air, and his advice sullies more than it illuminates. Always there are layers to his speech, and secrets folded in secrets." She shuddered, though Tirion in mid-summer could approach unbearable heat, and Angaráto wrapped his arm around her, resting his cheek on the crown of her head.

Her eyes started up at him, through the curtain of their hair entwined, blue glowing faintly, more of Laurelin's gold than Telperion's silver reflecting at him.

"I should rather keep Angaráto the dreamer, unblemished by strange counsel, than to boast of my sick friend's accomplishments," she murmured. "Think not that I care for what others say a prince of the Noldor should do or achieve. I would love you if you were the son of a poor baker on the street, or one of the Valar themselves. It is you I love, not your titles or your status.

"If you must consult the Valar, seek out Oromë; he had dealings with the Quendi before we were sundered. Or Ossë, who was friend to those who remained behind when our peoples sailed to Aman. But do not deal with Melkor."

* * *

><p>Author's Notes:<p>

Ancáno was supposed to be Angaráto's friend when I started writing this… not sure what happened there.

For anyone waiting to cry, "But Eldalôtë was Noldorin!(1)!", let me say that the idea of her as Vanyarin evolved when I found Tolkien's claim that all the descendents of Arafinwë had blond hair was ridiculous, given that they would be getting that blond hair from the progressively distant blood of Indis. Since Angaráto is the only one of Arafinwë's children to have children […that I care about…], I made his wife Vanyarin, just to make sure that Artaher/Orodreth could get the blond hair that was so freaking important to the professor.

In case anyone wants a diagram of why I found this claim ridiculous…

Arafinwë: ½ Vanyarin, ½ Noldorin  
>Angaráto: ¼ Vanyarin, ¼ Noldorin, ½ Telerin<br>Artaher with Noldorin mother: 1/8 Vanyarin, 5/8 Noldorin, ¼(2/8) Telerin

And the problem here is that the Noldor and Teleri tend to have dark hair, and they make up 7/8 of Artaher's genetic pool if I've done my math right and you assume his mother was Noldorin. However—

Artaher with Vanyarin mother: 5/8 Vanyarin, 1/8 Noldorin, ¼(2/8) Telerin

Thus, he has a great probability of turning out blond, and producing some blond kids of his own when his mother is Vanyarin.

Standard disclaimer: Michiru is in no way a geneticist, and freely admits that she came up with this graph by way of tiny pie charts that were shaded differently. She also admits that it is entirely possible for random hair colors to pop out of nowhere in families and that, as a subscriber to the "Tyelcormo was a blond and that's why he was called the Fair" group she should not be so pedantic about Eldalôtë needing to be Vanyarin to justify Orodreth's and Finduilas' blond hair.

Melinnon: translates from Quenya to English as "dear heart". I'm not sure whether to classify it as an epessë or as a pet name. Súlendë is not so easy to translate and is more abstract; it means "center breath" (actually, "breath center") and (is meant to) implies a wellspring of life, though not in the sense that, as a woman, Eldalôtë is able to give birth. Life here is intended in a more abstract sense. Many thanks to Elf Fetish's Quenya Name Frame, which is where I run when I need names, particularly when they need to mean something.


	3. II: Reaching Out

Summary: Young Artaher tries to show an interest in his father's line of study.

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><p>Vanyarin Year 1490<p>

Artaher thought to impress him with the recitation, Angaráto knew, but he could barely restrain a wince as his son skewed yet another vowel too close to his natural Vanyarin accent, and failed to resonate his subsequent _r_ to the degree research indicated Avarin Quenya would favor. The further in to the short recital he got, the more Artaher seemed to falter, stumbling into awkwardly long pauses and mumbling his way through entire lines. It likely didn't help that Lindalëar sat nearby, a smirk curling his lips and growing wider at every mistake Artaher made. The Teler had taken to coughing chuckles every few seconds, as the mistakes came faster and faster, and Angaráto could not even feel particularly offended on his son's behalf; the mistakes were laughable, considering Artaher came from linguistically-inclined parents.

At last, his son's warbling, high voice fell into silence and made no further attempt to rise, but Angaráto knew he had not made it through the entire piece, a simple poem about of the stars translated from Quenya to, theoretically, the language of the Avari. Angaráto had himself made the translation several years before; he would need to revise it sometime, as it was stilted and unexpressive even without a child mangling it.

"Can you not manage the rest?" he asked, trying to keep the hope from his voice, trying to think like Findecáno, who would surely know how to salvage the situation.

"No, Father," Artaher whispered, head ducked under Lindalëar's scrutiny, shaking in the bright light of the scriptorium. "I forgot it."

"Come here and we'll do it together," Angaráto said, as Findecáno would have, except he never got the chance to speak the words, as Artaher turned promptly on his heel and fled, leaving behind a spattering of tears on the marble floor.

* * *

><p>Author's Note:<p>

Lindalëar: Telerin professor of linguistics, specializing in the language of the Valar. For some reason, he's evolved into Angaráto's rival, even though their areas of study do not compete. I suppose we'll just have to assume that (like many) Lindalëar finds Angaráto's obsession with the Avarin language pointless and unscholarly.

Linguistic stuff is complete B.S., and I apologize to the professor most profusely. However, since relatively little is known about the Vanyarin strain of Quenya, who's to say whether the r's might be less resonant than r's in Sindarin?

The way this piece is set up now, I suppose Artaher tried to memorize and then recite the poem, which he then—due to nerves—forgot. However, the piece originally was meant to be an on-the-spot translation that Artaher simply wasn't skilled enough to pull off. I'm not sure which version I prefer.


	4. III: Estrangement

Summary: Fëanáro is not the only one to find himself estranged from his wife in the eventide of Bliss. A double drabble.

* * *

><p>Vanyarin Year 1493<p>

When Fëanáro and Nerdanel finally separate, it is the talk of Arda. For weeks, nothing is worthy of discussion, save Fëanáro's marital problems. The whispers seem to follow Finwë's other descendents wherever they go, even removed as they are from Fëanáro's blood.

There is something to be said for anonymity. No one is watching when the second son of the third prince is estranged from his wife. There is no sky-shattering revelation, no rumors dripping from mouth to mouth. There is merely a distance between them that was absent before, a growing coldness in their eyes.

And then Eldalôtë leaves.

* * *

><p>How strange that, after only forty years of marriage, she has become such a part of him that he cannot sleep without her.<p>

He has an audience with King Olwë in the morning, but the list of topics he will bring up is scattered, half-finished at his feet; he dropped it in his exhaustion, watching the sheets of parchment slide from his hands with dull fascination. His leg, curled under him on the window-seat, is numb and prickling, but he can't bring himself to move, his head rested against the glass, watching the play of Light across the courtyard fountain.

* * *

><p>In memory of Klaus Phillips,<p>

July 30, 1947 – October 4, 2011


	5. IV: One Last Meeting

Summary: At the Feast of Yavanna, Angaráto and Eldalôtë share one last night together. The next day, Darkness falls.

* * *

><p>Valarin Year 1495<p>

He did not look up as she entered the room, intent on putting his thoughts to paper on the possible permutations and uses of þ/s in the language of those who had remained in Endor. Though it was a topic that scholars written about exhaustively, their treatment of it had tended to disregard that the Teleri had greater insight into the issue than their abstract reasoning ever could. His interviews with King Olwë had yielded interesting contradictions to the accepted literature, and Angaráto hoped to finally have the treatise finished before the year was out.

He had forgotten—or perhaps merely neglected to consider—how formidable Eldalôtë could be when the mood struck her. Having been ignored, his wife hefted herself onto his desk, one hand seeming to find its place just so over his manuscript, threatening to smear the ink.

"Yes?" he asked carefully, watching for the tiny flexing that would ruin a day's work.

"Generally it is considered polite to make eye contact during speech," she noted mildly, and he finally looked up. Eldalôtë smiled at the victory, carefully lifting her hand and brushing his hair from his face. "It's late," she said, wiping at his cheek, which had undoubtedly been smudged at some point.

"The festival is still going strong—"

"Ah. So you do then realize that we are celebrating the gathering of the first fruits," Eldalôtë concluded. "And still you locked yourself away up here all day." The was something hard and brittle in her voice, and Angaráto saw himself confront it, saw the evening descend into another cold silence, as had reigned in Tirion, before he left and she returned to her parents' home.

Instead he said nothing, and Eldalôtë eventually sighed, dropped her hand to her lap.

"Come bathe with me," she said, half a plea, half an order. He set down his quill after a moment, and stood. Eldalôtë smiled again, more warm, and let him help her from the desk, and if his eyes lingered over-long on his manuscript, she made no comment.

* * *

><p>He noticed, with some amusement, that the bath had already been drawn as Eldalôtë shut and locked the door behind them. "Do I dare ask what would have happened if I had refused?" he murmured in her ear.<p>

"I would have taken a bath," she said innocently. The added, "With your manuscripts," did much to ruin the façade. He winced at the thought, and she pretended not to notice as she started undoing the many pins and bands he had tried to use to restrain his hair throughout the day.

"Really, Melinnon, if you would just do this properly the first time…" He smiled a bit at the familiar fussing, beginning to undo the fastening of his tunic, only for her to slap his hand away. "Let me," she said, flicking the last few pins away, carefully unwinding the final ribbon, moving on to his tunic.

For bare seconds, her fingertips lingered at his collar bone, and then he was surging up to meet her in a desperate kiss, clumsily fumbling his way through the fastenings of her festival robes as she continued to deftly zip through the laces of his remaining clothes. He paused long enough to kick out one of the towels set out for them by the bath, and then they were entwined on the floor, only the thick down of the bath towel separating them from the cold tile, original purpose forgotten.

Eldalôtë's voice rose in the meager beginnings of a song as they reached their end, when he was trapped in the terrifying state of not being able to distinguish his fëa from hers and seemed to watch from afar as their hroär writhed together in an ever-increasing agony of pleasure. At last, with his raw shriek drowning out his wife's more melodic bliss, they completed each other, and his whole body went limp, slumping over her, and he commenced the piecemeal process of putting himself back to order.

She held him as he trembled, hands rubbing down his spine, her breath heavy through his hair but her fëa bright and undisturbed. "Water," she murmured at last, stretching one hand out to their cooling bath. Still shivering, he heaved them both into the water, pulling her lighter frame into his lap and nuzzling at her head, his eyes closed.

"Stay," Eldalôtë whispered against his chest, as he combed his hands through her hair. "Here. Your son needs his father. And I have missed my husband."

"Forever," he promised.

* * *

><p>Author's Note:<p>

I really have no earth-shattering excuses this time: just the semester getting crazy and starting a new job with crazy hours (yay, money!). But, I plan to keep on track this time, which means look for an update around this time on the seventeenth (uh oh, a deadline).


	6. V: Fate Decided

Summary: "[…] with Fingon stood as they ever did Angrod and Aegnor, sons of Finarfin. But these held their peace and spoke not against their fathers." Thus were they condemned to the Helcaraxë.

* * *

><p>Valarin Year 1495<p>

"What of Angaráto and Aikanáro?" Tyelcormo asks, as we prepare to break our hasty conference, Carnistir's stool already scraping across the impractically white boards of the floor. Father, who had never sat through our discourse, was turning away, almost out the door and back to the deck of the ship when his third son spoke. I cast my eyes down to Tyelperinquar's dark head, nuzzled against my chest, know the image running behind Father's eyes, because it is also running behind mine, and has been for days now. There is Nolofinwë, sharp and utterly contrary, and Artanis' sneer even as her face lights over in greed, and Arafinwë urging useless caution.

And, standing to the side as Father tries to reclaim his birthright, mute and unmoving, the two cousins I had once loved as dearly as my brothers.

"We'll come back for them as well," I lie.

* * *

><p><em>The Silmarillion <em>has Maitimo asking Fëanáro who they will bring over first, and, since I don't believe willful ignorance is among Maitimo's traits, I have to assume he was completely ignorant of Fëanáro's plans. I've therefore assumed in my head-canon that all of his sons were likewise ignorant—except Curufinwë Atarinkë, who is enough like his father to intuit on his own that they will never return.

Trivia: the conference was his sons' idea—Fëanáro is not actively deceiving them into believing that he plans to send the ships back.

Obviously missing scene is obvious: what about the moment when Angaráto realizes his wife is not coming with him to Endor? Well~… It's been so clear for me from the very beginning that Eldalôtë wouldn't leave Valinor that I never really stopped to imagine how it would go. (Fail author is fail.) It's only now, looking back on this story as a whole, that I realized it's a very conspicuous gap in the narrative. I haven't thrown it in at the last minute because I feel like I need more than a week to reflect and develop such an important moment, and I refuse to get off schedule again (that way lies another six-month hiatus…). Will I ever do this scene? Yes. _The Line of Kings_ doesn't end with this story; I'm planning a similar type of piece focusing on Angaráto and Aikanáro's childhood, and one focusing more on the romance between Angaráto and Eldalôtë, which is where I imagine the scene will finally appear. Both of which will fall under the _LoK-_verse. Until then, my deepest, most abashed apologies.


	7. VI: Fruition

Summary: Findecáno's prayer peels back the Doom of the Noldor for one instant. Angaráto receives a brief vision of those he left behind, before the window between Aman and Endor is shut again. This is what exile truly means.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 5<p>

Two weeks after Findecáno was discovered missing, Angaráto woke Aikanáro from a deep sleep in the dead of night, screaming as though he were being put to torment.

He didn't remember screaming, except in the internal agony of his fëa, which writhed within his hroä, for the first time in his life a cage rather than a sanctuary. When he woke, he was cradled in Aikanáro's arms, listening to the warbling melody of Ingoldo's harp and sobbing unashamedly, unable to answer his brothers' queries through the graceless, guttural noises heaving in his chest, resonating in the very core of his being.

—_Eldalôtë in her father's house, moving slowly, encumbered by the girth of her belly and the Dark that pressed against the feeble light of candles and stars—_

—_her fair complexion ruddied with effort, her teeth grit against a cry and his name a curse and a plea in her mind as his father flit about anxiously in another room, driving Grand-uncle and his father-in-law to distraction—_

—_a small face, round with youth, gazing in fear and wonder up at the new lights in the sky, and Eldalôtë's smile both tender and sorrowful—_

—_his wife starting from sleep, a small form curled at her side, her eyes meeting his, calling hesitantly into the night—_

"Angaráto! Angaráto, my brother, please. What do you see?" Aikanáro begged, rocking him gently from side to side, as Grandmother Indis would do when they were young. The motion accentuated the saliva coating Aikanáro's under tunic, stretching like spider silk to Angaráto's lips and teeth, drawn back and bared in open-mouthed anguish, though no further sound escaped him. The sensation was unpleasant in a distant, barely registered way, but he couldn't bear to draw his face away from Aikanáro's shoulder, needed the physical comfort from his brothers, for surely, if they still loved him, he could not have left his wife to bear and raise one of their children alone for all eternity.


	8. VII: Family Politics

Summary: Ingoldo turns to Angaráto for help dealing with a Fëanárion. It goes so well he asks Angaráto to be the first Noldorin ambassador to Menegroth. _It's impossible to refuse Ingoldo, especially when you know you should._

* * *

><p>First Age Year 5<p>

Shot In the Dark

Not long after Findecáno returns from Angamando, Tyelcormo arrives in the Fëanárian city-turned greater Noldorin encampment. Ostensibly, he has come to reciprocate Nelyafinwë's rescue by offering the lay of the land as the Fëanárians have found it.

The truth is on every jaded lip in the streets: Nolofinwë still holds custody of Fëanáro's eldest and shows no sign of relinquishing him any time soon. Gratitude has not moved the ruling house; desperation has. The grim delight with which he hears complete strangers gloat about holding a gravely ill man hostage from his brothers turns Angaráto's stomach, but then, it hasn't been settled since long before the Darkening.

Still, in and of itself, Tyelcormo's visit should be of little concern compared to other, more pressing issues, such as the on-going efforts to expand the city. Even with the losses sustained on the Ice, those who followed Nolofinwë and Ingoldo to Endor vastly outnumber the Fëanárians. And Tyelcormo had sent a messenger before him announcing his intentions and seeking permission to enter the city, so it isn't as if he has turned up unexpectedly.

The problem arises when it comes time to actually receive him.

Findecáno will not leave Nelyafinwë's side for the Remaking of Arda, and because the Fëanárians will not renounce their claim to Finwë's throne, Nolofinwë refuses to meet with Fëanáro's third son. Ar-Feiniel has not budged on her vow to have nothing to do with her one-time friend, while not even his staunchest supports believe Turukáno capable of treating fairly with the lowliest of Fëanáro's followers, let alone one of his sons.

So the responsibility falls to Ingoldo, who has not let Angaráto leave his sight since that night, weeks ago now. The agonizing truth still dogs Angaráto's waking hours, giving the lie to his lackluster protestations of good health. Neither of his brothers believes he is well; between themselves, they seem to have determined to keep him in the company of at least one of them during all hours of the day and night.

He knows they mean well, but at times their constant scrutiny make it seem as though the truth of his shame is etched upon his body. It sets his fingers itching to tear his hroä from his beleaguered fëa, and such urges remind him uncomfortably of Findecáno's whispered retelling of Nelyafinwë's plea to be murdered. So perhaps his brothers are not wrong to keep him in their sight.

This is the thought foremost in his mind as he watches Ingoldo pace back and forth across the audience chamber.

"He will ask to see Maitimo," he is saying, accent slurring towards that odd blend of Vanyarinized Noldorin and Telerin Quenya that only Ingoldo can manage. "Before anything else, he'll ask to see his brother; how could he not? I don't know whether Maitimo is well enough today to have visitors, let alone if he'll want to see Tyelcormo." Angaráto has always called his eldest half-cousin by his essë. In the wake of his captivity, only Ingoldo still calls him 'Maitimo'.

"Findecáno certainly won't want to let Tyelcormo see him," Aikanáro weighs in from where he is sprawled across Ingoldo's untouched seat. His fingers absently comb braids into Angaráto's hair, the grooming primitively soothing. "I wouldn't risk his wrath if I were you,

Ingo; he might feed you to his pet crow." The bitterness in Aikanáro's voice pools heavy on Angaráto's tongue.

His younger brother is only partly impressed with their cousin's rescue of Nelyafinwë, only partly exasperated by Findecáno's sheer, blissful stupidity. Mostly Aikanáro is furious that after all the lives lost on the Helcaraxë, the Valar saw fit only to save the life of one who wished to die. Aikanáro has carried the weight of those who wasted away under his care across the Ice into Endor, and hates that his many prayers went unanswered when they now have proof that the Valar are not so deaf as the Prophecy proclaimed.

Angaráto is unsurprised by the seeming contradiction, though he could not say why. Nor does he ever want to; Turukáno still glares murder at him for his long-ago assertion that Fëanáro would return for them. He will never again attempt to justify the actions of those whose minds he cannot comprehend.

"Leave off," Ingoldo chides Aikanáro, stern but gentle, so much the image of Father that Angaráto's heart aches—

—and then Ingoldo traces the sign of the swan across his breast, a Telerin superstition meant to ward off ill-fate, and the vision of Arafinwë fades to memory. The swan sign, and the superstition, are wholly Mother's.

"If you refuse to let him see Nelyafinwë, he may rescind his offer of aid," Angaráto warns, voice dry from disuse. Ingoldo's face lights up momentarily at the sound, then falls at the words.

"Then what do I do?" he pleads, as though Angaráto has the answers. Yéni ago, when he was welcome in Fëanáro's household, he might have. Now, when he ranks alongside complete strangers to be abandoned to cross the Helcaraxë on foot after having left behind his wife and unborn child—

Angaráto scrubs a hand down his face, drops it back to his side before he can seriously contemplate trying to physically gouge the ache from behind his eyes. How does one deal with temperamental Fëanárioni? Temperamental, Kinslaying Fëanárioni wanting to see a brother they had abandoned to Moringotto for years…

"Business must come first," he says slowly, seeing in his mind the razor-sharp, restless grey eyes of the Fëanáro of his youth, the Fëanáro who had cultivated his endless enthusiasm for theoretical linguistics. "Though we all know why Tyelcormo has really come, he claims to come for business' sake. You must insist he follow through. Once we have his information…" Angaráto wavers, ultimately unsure. With the lay of the land firmly in their grasp, entertaining Tyelcormo's desires will no longer be a pressing concern. There is Nelyafinwë to consider, the morale of the people, Tyelcormo's safety, Findecáno, Nolofinwë, the implications of denying a Fëanárion access to Fëanáro's heir—

"Emphasize that Nelyafinwë is in a fragile state, and that it must be his choice to receive visitors, assuming he is awake and well enough." Ingoldo looks immeasurably heartened by the advice, Aikanáro impressed. Angaráto feels sick.

No Fëanárion will ever be led unwillingly astray by such transparent maneuvering. Success will depend on Tyelcormo's cooperation. Though the yéni have changed much about their half-cousins, some things never truly change.

And Tyelcormo is a stubborn ass.

* * *

><p>Delayed Realizations<p>

The procession of maps Tyelcormo shares are exquisite, works of art in their own right, from the more fanciful that emphasize important landmarks to the table-sized, fully colored map detailing all of Endor that has yet been explored. He has brought maps marking the migrational patterns of game and fowl, maps that notate climate and speculate on the types of agriculture that might thrive in the present conditions.

More amazing than the maps themselves, Tyelcormo has brought duplicates for their permanent retention, all of which have been so carefully copied as to be indistinguishable from the originals. It is a greater statement of good will than Angaráto had expected to receive from the Fëanárians after the betrayal of Araman; the cartographers must have worked tirelessly to produce such craftsmanship in only a matter of weeks. Even the most cynical of the Noldor will have to acknowledge the gratitude the gesture conveys.

"Why not cut through here?" Ingoldo asks, finger hovering over a brooding, unlabelled forest. Tyelcormo stops short in his descriptions of the horrors of the narrow strip of land between the forest and the mountains that form the southern border of an alpine highland to the east. The Fëanárion scoffs under his breath, and beneath the table Huan grumbles long-sufferingly.

Ingoldo frowns at the show of temper, the first Tyelcormo has displayed since his arrival. "I was only curious. It seems sensible to avoid this place all together with the dangers you've mentioned, especially with another route so near at hand. Is there a greater threat in the forest?"

"We don't know," Tyelcormo says curtly.

"You don't know?" Aikanáro echoes dubiously, looking up from his perusal of the latest map—a to-scale representation of established paths and their attendant hazards. "You've been here four and a half years and you've neglected to explore the largest forest for leagues around?"

Tyelcormo ignores this jab, as he has ignored all of Aikanáro's inflammatory remarks thus far, glaring down at the unassuming patch of green.

"The natives call it Doriath. Apparently, it is the stronghold of Elu Thingol and his witch wife, and it is barred to strangers. To the Abyss with travelers looking to avoid damned Ungoliant's brood," he adds, lip curling.

"What could you have possibly done to offend the Avari already?" Aikanáro mock-wonders, ignoring Ingoldo's increasingly less subtle commands to hold his tongue.

"King Elu Thingol?" Angaráto repeats, syllables morphing in his mind, the shadow of a familiar name reaching out of antiquity…

"So we've been told," Tyelcormo confirms, glancing up from the map, barely.

"Shut up," Ingoldo says at last to Aikanáro as their younger brother opens his mouth again. Aikanáro flushes but does as he is bid, slouching back in his chair with the air of one stabbed in the back. Huan sits up and rests his head on Aikanáro's knee with a soft _whuff_, tail thumping the stone floor. "What were you saying Angaráto?" Ingoldo asks.

"Elwë Singollo?" he questions, willing Tyelcormo to look up and meet his eyes. The Fëanárion merely shrugs.

"We can only assume."

"Granduncle Elwë?" Ingoldo echoes, surprised, not quite believing. Aikanáro's brows rise almost to his hairline. Tyelcormo's eyes flick up, roving over each of them before dropping back down to the map. He sighs, and apparently resigns himself to being dragged off-topic.

"As I said, we can only draw conclusions based on what little we know. It's possible this Elu is Elwë himself or a descendent of Elwë or of no relation whatsoever save coincidence. He won't speak with us and those of his people not behind his damned barrier haven't told us anything reliable; they insist their queen is a _Maia_ of all things." Aikanáro snorts at this exasperated proclamation, and even Ingoldo cocks his head skeptically.

"Well," he begins, awkwardly, and pauses, as though unable to find anything proper to say to that.

"Our long-lost distant Avari relatives are lunatics," Aikanáro announces, deadpan. "Wonderful to know. Any more good news while you're at it?"

"Barrier?" Angaráto interrupts, frowning, combing over the border of Doriath, trying to discern the structure. Tyelcormo's head bobs in a half nod and he runs a finger around the edge of the forest.

"It's magically sealed," he explains as a nagging sensation of falling nibbles at Angaráto's mind. It persists through the rest of Tyelcormo's clarification and Ingoldo and Aikanáro's subsequent barrage of questions. Angaráto barely catches half of what is said as he puzzles out the ever-growing feeling of loss yawning in the pit of his stomach.

"Whoever Thingol is," Tyelcormo concludes, just as the realization falls into place and Angaráto's breath lodges in his chest, "it's clear that if he ever knew the name of Finwë, he has long forgotten it."

"You've had contact with the Avari," Angaráto says, surprised by how even his voice is. His brothers both glance at him sidelong; Huan whines.

"Further south and to the east, yes. The barrier doesn't extend far enough past the forest to be useful, so they don't settle this far north."

"But you've—spoken with them? More than just pantomime—actual conversations?" For how could pantomime produce the name Elu Thingol? Still, Angaráto's heart shrivels and half-formed hopes shatter as Tyelcormo looks down at the tabletop rather than meet his eyes. First Aikanáro and then Ingoldo go stiff as they draw the connection.

"Well, yes. We've been here long enough to learn their language." There is an abashed, unspoken regret in the muttered words, and Angaráto grits his teeth, waiting eagerly for the apology he fervently prays will never be given voice. There is only so much one mind can be expected to accept all at once, and if Tyelcormo has the gall to sit before him and offer trite condolences for invalidating his life's work in twelve words—

Tyelcormo says nothing further and the madness passes, leaving Angaráto shivering and numb and ridiculously struck by the unfairness of the whole situation.

"Who was it?" he asks hollowly, ignoring the hand Aikanáro rests on his shoulder. "Who was the one who—?"

"Does it matter?" The blunt question sparks another wild fury that fades faster than the previous one, leaves him emptier than before.

"No. You're right," he agrees, before either of his brothers can say anything, or Aikanáro reaches across the table to strangle Tyelcormo for his lack of tact. "I suppose it really doesn't. Let it go," he adds in an undertone, to Aikanáro, still tense and spoiling for a fight… and to himself.

Ingoldo's hands fidget where they rest on the table. After a moment he says, "So the shortest route east is between Doriath and this highland." Somehow, amazingly, Tyelcormo goes back to explaining his maps, and at some point even Aikanáro joins the discussion.

Angaráto sits, and says nothing.

* * *

><p>Interlude<p>

Days later, Tyelcormo is still there, hovering around like another gust of Moringotto's poison mist. Angaráto cannot bring himself to understand his half-cousin's desire to see Nelyafinwë and wonders idly when someone will snap and attack the Fëanárion. He wonders, also, whether he'll be able to muster up enough feeling to stop them if they do.

He makes an effort to distract himself from the bitterness of it all, he really does. He tries spending more time with Artaher, for he knows his son is lonely and homesick. But everything about the boy reminds him of Eldalôtë, and her eyes searching for him in the dark of their bedchamber, a sleeping child curled in her arms—

Any other torment ever devised is preferable to dwelling on the unceasing horror of that image, the immutable fact that those are the last memories he'll have of his wife, the only memory he'll have of their second child, until the Remaking of the world. He doesn't even know, he realizes one evening, whether he sired a daughter or another son.

So he leaves Artaher in Ingoldo's care, and eventually throws himself into the study of the language he should have helped decipher. Tyelcormo becomes his partner in this endeavor out of sheer necessity; no one else in the encampment has caught more than bare glimpses of the moriquendi, let alone spoken with them.

The language—Sindarin, Tyelcormo calls it, named for its speakers—is surprisingly easy to pick up. It should be gratifying to learn that many of his theories are at least half-right—the construction of names generally seems to follow the noun-adjective form he had proposed in one of his earliest treatises—but the retroactive vindication means little in Endor. Ancáno remained in Tirion with his father; Lindalëar might well have been slain at Alqualondë; and Angaráto can claim no credit in any case. Besides, many of his later, more elaborate theories have been proven completely false: all the delicate sub-cases he imagined and agonized over are utterly non-existent in reality.

Two weeks after he first arrived, with Tyelcormo lingering in the city despite having seen Nelyafinwë several times, Angaráto is able to converse with his half-cousin fluently in Sindarin. It strikes him that afternoon, as he absentmindedly corrects Tyelcormo's grammar, that, rather than feeling as though his achievement has been usurped, he now feels… bored.

"When are you leaving?" he asks, interrupting Tyelcormo's much-abridged analysis of common prepositional phrases. Tyelcormo glares at the interruption, but he's been glaring since Angaráto started balancing his chair on its hind legs, so Angaráto hardly notices. He hasn't had a restful sleep in far too long, and Artaher is crawling into bed with him almost nightly, crying over nightmares he refuses to talk about.

"Tired of me?" Tyelcormo asks, entirely too casual to not care about the answer. Angaráto rolls his eyes and waits expectantly. Eventually Tyelcormo huffs, slamming Angaráto's chair back on all floors by catching the front crossbeam of the forelegs with his feet and pushing down.

"You're so melodramatic, Artanis," Angaráto says, and ducks as Tyelcormo throws a sloppy punch his way. Angaráto makes no further attempt to emulate the good-natured ribbing of their youth, and Tyelcormo does not follow through with his first attack. They both sit, quiet, looking out the thick window at the warped view of the street below, and if it isn't quite a companionable silence, it isn't overtly hostile.

"Within the week," Tyelcormo announces abruptly. "I'll be going back within the week." Angaráto nods absently, allows Huan to nuzzle his snout beneath his clasped hands. The great hound has been following him, and Aikanáro, the whole time he has been in the city, begging to have his ears scratched whenever he catches them still a moment. It's a sad thing when the dog shows more remorse for abandoning them than its master.

"There's something I have to do first," Tyelcormo admits.

"What?" Angaráto asks, because he is clearly meant to. But Tyelcormo shakes his head.

"Not yet."

It is three days more before Tyelcormo finds him again, late at night and coming back from Artaher's room. As he approaches, he pulls out a dark scroll and offers it to Angaráto.

"Here," he says, subdued, "our initial analysis of the surrounding area." Angaráto takes it from him, unfolding the grey-stained vellum and glancing over it cursorily. Compared to the maps Tyelcormo had presented previously, it is decidedly unimpressive—the color of slate and marked over with lighter shades of the same color. Peering closer, Angaráto is not certain how it is oriented—until he cocks his head and the mist shifts outside and the faint lines of the map light up. A blob to the south of the map resolves into a familiar shoreline as Angaráto marvels over the metallic quality of the ink and its light-reflecting properties.

"It pays particular attention to the terrain and its suitability for construction," Tyelcormo adds. Then he admits, "Curvo said the city would have to be expanded if Nolofinwë planned to settle in it."

A genuine smile curls Angaráto's lips, his first in too long to think about. "Is this a duplicate?"

"No." Angaráto nods, unrolls the vellum a little further.

"I'll have it copied as soon as possible and return it when it's done," he offers; Atarinkë does not part easily with the works of his hands, especially not when they are the pioneers of a new technique. For him to have even let it out of his sight speaks volumes.

"No," Tyelcormo says. "You keep it." Angaráto, caught up in his perusal of the map, only looks up as the Fëanárion is turning the corner at the far end of the corridor. With a frown, Angaráto looks back down, following the graceful lines of a landscape that is becoming familiar, until the whole scroll is open in his two hands and he catches sight of the flowing signature scrawled carelessly in the corner.

_Curufinwë Fëanáro_

* * *

><p>First Age Year 6<p>

Errand-runner

"I am troubled, Angamaitë," Ingoldo murmurs as they walk around Mithrim's shore, Artaher and Tyelperinquar wandering several yards ahead. Tyelperinquar is pointing out the different types of rocks embedded in the dirt, and has an avid listener in his son; he shall have to speak with Atarinkë about teaching Artaher stone-lore.

"Over the feasibility of hemming Moringotto into his fortress?" Angaráto asks wryly; they have just come from Nolofinwë's first council as High King of the Noldor in Beleriand since Nelyafinwë waived his claim to the title. His uncle's plan to set up a watch on Angamando had not been well received, but, as they all eventually agreed, they had few other options presently.

"Over the high-handed way in which we are sending out messengers across Beleriand," Ingoldo answers. "These are not fey Avari we're dealing with; they are a people with a cohesive culture and established ruler. We ought to be treating with Elwë, not his subjects." Angaráto nods once, conceding the point; Artanis has voiced the same concerns separately to Aikanáro. Their sister is drawn to the quiet Sindar, though Angaráto half-feels it is homesickness that fuels her sympathy. Alqualondë was more Artanis' home than Tirion in Valinor, and from what he has seen there is some echo of the Teleri in the ethereal beauty of the moriquendi.

"There's nothing to be done about it," Angaráto assesses; Tyelperinquar shrieks as Artaher splashes him. The sound has his and Ingoldo's hands dropping to their swords before they register that the children are merely playing. "He will not permit strangers to enter his kingdom."

"What if it were not a stranger seeking entry?" Ingoldo muses, almost to himself. "What if one were to go to him as long-lost kin?"

"He did not budge for the name of Finwë," Angaráto disagrees. Grandfather had spoken of Elwë as a brother, closer than a brother, and he and Granduncle Ingwë had mourned every anniversary of the Telerin king's disappearance. Either that love had not been mutual, or Elwë had lived too long under the shadow of Moringotto's evil to still be moved by it. "Why should the name of Arafinwë move him?"

"We, more than most, should be understanding of the anger that can be harbored in the hearts of those whose kin have abandoned them," Ingoldo remarks delicately. The words summon up the powerless despair of Araman, and Angaráto shivers under the full light of the sun. Ingoldo does not apologize, pausing his walk with one foot braced against a rocky outcropping, his eyes lost in contemplation of the West.

"You mean to seek entry, then," Angaráto says, steering his brother out of the private melancholy he is apt to fall into at times. After a moment Ingoldo turns back to him, smiling sheepishly.

"I had hoped that you would go in my stead," he admits. Angaráto stares, his mind full of reasons to refuse; he is a linguist, not a diplomat, and Artaher will need looking after, and he had planned to accompany Aikanáro on a scouting trip with Curvo and Tyelcormo, and it is not Ingoldo's place to send him anywhere without Nolofinwë's leave—

But Ingoldo is still smiling winningly, the light of the sun in his hair almost a reflection of Laurelin, and Angaráto knows what answer he will give, the same answer everyone always gives when it comes to Ingoldo. His beloved older brother always seems to get his way.

"I will go if you think it best," he says. The warmth that lights Ingoldo's eyes then is enough to drive the misgivings from Angaráto's mind, at least momentarily. But from the very beginning the errand leaves him uneasy, and as he prepares to travel he continues to be plagued with echoes of the Prophecy in the North.

* * *

><p>The Warren<p>

Menegroth reminds him of a rabbit's warren, all tunnels and side rooms and twisting corridors. There are places where the stone floor is uneven, worn down from yéni of traffic, and the flickering torches make these areas hard to distinguish, sending him stumbling into the back of Celeborn, who introduced himself as Prince of Doriath.

_The Sindar descend from the trees like spiders, startling Angaráto and his companions and nearly sending their horses bolting. He can hear snickers in the woods around them and holds his head up high, calming his uneasy Noldorin followers with a soft word and the façade of confidence._

The torch light also shatters over his ceremonial armor, worn at Ingoldo's insistence, spangling the walls in flashes of dancing gold, and the more elusive glint of sapphire from the hilt of his sword; he stands out amongst the grey-clad Sindar, and does not want to. Celeborn's dark eyes were already mocking and unfriendly when he greeted him in the woods, and had grown more hostile as he took in Angaráto's bright clothing.

"_They dress like magpies," someone mutters. Angaráto, the only one of his company completely fluent in the language of their hosts, half-turns toward the speaker, but cannot pick him out in the dim light of the forest_._ When he turns back to Celeborn, the man's dark eyes dare him to make something of the remark._

_"_It is not my fault we thrived in light while you languished in shadows,"he wants to say, for every signal he is getting from Celeborn and his Sindarin companions seems to imply bitterness, but he holds his tongue. The slightest implication that the Sindar are lesser than the Noldor has already set Celeborn's hand twitching to the blocky axe at his side.

_He backtracks as fast as he may from "moerbin," but the damage is done, and even Ingoldo's Sindarin friend, who won them entry to Doriath by speaking on their behalf to Elu Thingol, is staring at him in open disbelief, heading towards outright anger._

He had not thought the Sindar would find another use for the term "dark Elf," living in perpetual dark, nor that they would use _calben_ to refer to the state of their fëar, rather than as a description for the surroundings they lived in. The insight into their character is fascinating, but the social blunder is superseding his intellectual interest in their language, and all Angaráto can wish is that Ingoldo had not trusted him to give the Sindar their first impression of the Noldor.

The dark eyes watching him from the shadows of uneven light glare accusations at his back. Angaráto shivers and draws his tattered cloak closer around himself.

Author's Notes: A rebuttal for a portrayal of the Noldor, and particularly Angaráto, in a story I once read. While I have great respect for the author, I found the characterizations of both the Noldor and the Sindar to be heavy-handed, with the Sindar inherently good and the Noldor inherently bad, or at least arrogant and intolerant. And the characterization of Angaráto as more or less a spoiled twit set my teeth itching. Granted, this could have had something to with the fact that the author went with the genealogies in the published _Silmarillion_, making Angaráto much younger than he is in my head canon, but I still found it grossly unfair.

1. Fëanárion/Fëanárian and Fëanorion/Fëanorian: I use all four of these throughout my writings, and it might seem as though I'm just not thinking or can't make up my mind on how to spell it. Rest assured, my madness has a method to it. Fëanárion/Fëanárian is meant to be Quenya, referring to a son of Fëan_á_ro or Fëan_á_ro's followers (also things associated with Fëanáro, such as the city he built), respectively. Fëanorion/Fëanorian is the same, in the same order, but with the Sindarin version Fëan_o_r.

2, On Ingoldo: the published _Silmarillion_ has some very interesting tidbits about our dear friend Felagund. For example, he is the wealthiest and most well-loved of all the princes of the Noldor (131, 140), and it was Ingoldo, not Nolofinwë, who sent Angaráto to meet the Sindar in Doriath (127). I find this interesting, considering Nolofinwë was the High King. This falls to the wayside here, but Nolofinwë is Highly Unamused by the stunt.

3. "…four and a half years…" The Fëanorians arrive in Beleriand in 1496 by my timeline, and the rest of the Noldor arrive four years of the Trees later. Nelyo is rescued in FA 5 according to the Tolkien Gateway's First Age timeline. So what's Aikanáro thinking? Well, according to _Morgoth's Ring/War of the Jewels_, one year of the Trees is equal to about ten years of our years. Thus, while five years of the sun have passed since the start of the First Age, to the Noldor recently arrived from Aman, it feels like only half a year. This is how I justify Findecáno waiting five years to rescue Nelyo, and explains why there's been no contact with the Sindar; the Noldor are operating on a time period that feels shorter to them than five years sounds to us. Eventually they notice and adapt to the shorter year cycles of the sun, but for now they're still thinking of time in Valinorian terms. (Shorthand: elven jetlag.)

4. The Interlude: the Fëanorians have been trying to sidetrack me with maps for a year now. Congratulations are in order to Tyelcormo for providing the only one that has made the cut thus far. Because once he told me his whole plan, I couldn't leave it out.

5. The ceremonial armor: Ingoldo packed it, and made sure it wasn't left behind on the Ice.

6. Moerbin/Calben: Sindarin phrases denotationally identical to the Quenya phrases Moriquendi/Calaquendi, which the Noldor use to distinguish between Elves who have not seen the Light of the Trees versus those who have. However, the Sindarin phrases carry the connotation of those who serve Morgoth versus those who don't, and so take moerbin as an insult when it is not intended so. When tensions later arise among the Noldor and Sindar, the Quenya terms shift from containing an inherent sense of superiority to being meant as insults. (At least in my head-canon.)

7. I've spent a year rewriting this, and I'm still not entirely sure I'm happy with it.


	9. VIII: A Small Favor

Summary: Turukáno has an odd request.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 53<p>

Angaráto was debating with Aikanáro the best way to keep the goats from getting into the rye crop when Turukáno arrived unannounced, unkempt and with the air of someone who had not had a square meal in days. Nevertheless, their cousin's manners were as perfect as ever as he requested a brief audience with Angaráto. Aikanáro shrugged, and left to get a better idea of whether it would be possible to build a fence with materials the goats found naturally repulsive.

"I have a small favor to ask you; do you have a map?" Turukáno asked, all in one breath, when Aikanáro had shut the door behind him.

"Of course," Angaráto answered, nonplussed.

"May I see it?" Turukáno asked sharply, even as Angaráto was reaching to retrieve the latest map of Dorthonion his cartographers had drawn up and was unrolling it atop his desk. Turukáno perched over it like a bird, frowning to himself as his eyes roved over the map.

"You look hungry, cousin," Angaráto ventured when Turukáno was silent for several minutes more.

"No, no, no, I'm fine," Turukáno waved, as though brushing dirt from the air. "Tell me, Angaráto, am I right in thinking that your settlement is to be mostly east of Anach and north?"

"Yes?"

"Excellent," Turukáno murmured.

"Are you well?" Angaráto asked bluntly; Nolofinwë's middle son was inclined to strange behavior since Elenwë was lost to the Ice, and he could well understand the madness that itched beneath the skin of one who had lost half of himself. Turukáno looked up from the map at last, his eyes fever-bright, his face pale, hair wild.

"Quite well. Thank you."

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Came about when I was perusing a map of Beleriand and realized, "…Gondolin's in Dorthonion." And yes, technically, Turukáno wasn't allowed to tell anyone about the city, but he technically didn't say anything about Gondolin.<p>

Also: I blame Carol Berg and her Lighthouse Duet for all the map references.


	10. IX: Winter Remembrances

Summary: Angaráto and Artaher spend the winter in Himlad. He and Curufinwë Atarinkë renew their friendship, consider their wives and embarrass their children.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 60<p>

They were supposed to have been discussing the long-term progression of Artaher's study of lithology and petrology, but it was easy, between old friends, to be dragged off topic, and the arrival of the boys had caused the meeting to lose any sense of purpose. They had at last conceded defeat, and Atarinkë had pulled out one of the coveted bottles of wine from Aman, the vintage older than either of them, and their conversation had somehow drifted from happy reminiscing of their youth to the rather bleak topic of their wives and troubled marriages.

"_I have a child I will never meet." _The words were on his tongue, ready to be spat in the face of Atarinkë's confident assertion that his long engagement to Eldalôtë had ensured that they were well suited to each other, as Atarinkë and his wife had not been. Only the sight of the blond and black hair entwined of Artaher and Tyelperinquar—sprawled deep in conference over miniature figurines placed on a map of Beleriand at their feet—prevented them from breaking free. Or perhaps he was flattering himself, and the truth was he couldn't bear to reveal that shame to another, didn't want to explain the shadow in his eyes that Atarinkë had noticed but carefully ignored. Instead, he silently lifted his left hand, held it before Atarinkë so he could see that the bright sapphire of his marriage band, which had once shone with the light of his wife's love, had fallen dark.

Atarinkë's answering smile was sympathetic; but then, Angaráto could not recall seeing his cousin wear his own ring since shortly after Tyelperinquar's birth.

From Atarinkë's doorstep, he could see the sense in the proclamation: his cousin had married quickly, as he did everything, eager to follow in his father's footsteps. In the end, he and his wife had separated before even Fëanáro and Nerdanel had at last become estranged. But, just as Atarinkë had not remarked on the shame Angaráto could not hide from those who recognized it, so did Angaráto not tell his cousin that he erred in his reasoning. Atarinkë and his wife had not married wrongly, in their haste, and love had burned fiercely between them in the beginning, little though his cousin seemed to remember it. Their estrangement, more bitter even than the separation of Finwë and Míriel, had the same cause, though the end was quite a bit different. Angaráto, his thoughts drifting to Tyelperinquar's not quite forgotten amilessi, shivered, and did not continue the conversation.

Instead, he turned his eyes to the figurines, some of which Artaher was considering thoughtfully, head cast back to keep his bangs from his eyes in a manner so reminiscent of his mother that Angaráto could have wept. "These are very good, Tyelpë," he murmured, slipping back into his Vanyarin dialect because it was easier to mask his emotions behind the rising and falling lilt. The boy ducked his head under the praise, accidentally cracking his forehead with Artaher's, who winced but gave no further notice.

"He's progressing rather well in his studies, though his manners are not yet up to par," Atarinkë said, a strange blend of love and exasperation in his voice.

"Thank you, Uncle Artanga," Tyelperinquar mumbled at his father's prompting, the ancient epessë bringing a smile to Angaráto's lips. Then, with a sideways glance up at his father, he added, "Arto knows more about geography than me, though."

"I," Artaher corrected under his breath, at what he obviously thought was too soft a volume for the adults to hear, and Tyelperinquar rushed to repeat the correction; Angaráto and Atarinkë exchanged a look over their sons' heads, and burst into laughter.

"Trust the linguist's son," Atarinkë snickered.

"His manners are fine; it's his grammar that should concern you," Angaráto teased. Artaher cried a protest in Tyelperinquar's defense, and Tyelperinquar, in the face of their renewed laughter, stood and haughtily proclaimed his appreciation of Artaher's support. The two swept from the study in disgust when neither he nor Atarinkë could reign in their humor, Tyelperinquar exasperatedly announcing that they were taking their leave.

Atarinkë, already bent double with mirth, slumped bonelessly over into Angaráto's lap, pealing uncontrollably, his whole body convulsing merrily. "What a pair!" he gasped, choking as he sucked desperately for air and inhaled a strand of hair that had escaped its confinement. "What a fine pair."

Sitting on a couch in Himlad, his neck resting over its back, his cousin's weight numbing his feet and laughter making his body ache, Angaráto could almost forget the shadow gathered like a shroud over his fëa.

* * *

><p>Notes:<p>

1. The correct way to spell Celebrimbor's Quenya name is Telperinquar. Long ago I got confused by the y in tyelpë, one of the elements of the name, and combined it with Telperinquar to get Tyelperinquar. I later realized this was a mistake on my part, but I have gotten so attached to Tyelperinquar that I refuse to change it. I like the twang of "tyel" versus "tel".

2. This becomes a point in a later piece, but Angaráto and Artaher (and Aikanáro) are in Himlad for the winter because the settlement in Dorthonion has not been completed.

3. The Tolkien Gateway asserts that Telperinquar is Celebrimbor's father-name, not his mother-name, which is odd, because you'd think Curvo of all people would hold to the –finwë theme when naming his children. As I can't find any reference within the texts of the Histories of Middle-earth to support this assertion, I am forced to conclude that the Gateway is only assuming Telperinquar to be the father-name. However, I ran with that assertion and stamped it firmly within the Michy-verse, as it fleshed out quite a lot of Curvo's character and his history in Aman, which is not a happy one.

He and his wife had trouble conceiving a child, and Celebrimbor's birth was hard on his mother, to the point that she named him Serkefinwë, "blood-finwë," as a reminder of the pain he caused her coming into the world. Despite the inauspicious nature of the name, Curvo let it slide, respecting that the birth had been hard for her, and also of the almost post-partum depression she seemed to be suffering. He therefore gave his son the more hopeful name "Telperinquar," and that might have been the end of it. However, his wife's apathy towards the new baby deepened into outright distaste, and she began to resent both Telperinquar and Curufinwë, and eventually Curvo caught her calling their son Saurafinwë, "abhorrent-finwë," and he would not let that pass. When he confronted her over it, she declared that she had no love left in her heart for either of them and accused him of attempting to drive her to a Míriel-esque suicide so that he could dissolve their union and remarry a woman who would give him the children he desperately desired. She then left to return to her parents, and Curvo returned with Telperinquar to live with his father, bitter and volatile—a precursor to the "fey madness" that would overtake Fëanáro towards the end of his life—with his dreams of giving his parents the daughter they never had themselves shattered beyond repair. In retaliation, he ordered his son's mother-name to never be spoken again, and so it fell out of memory.

Saurafinwë might actually be prophetic, as the "abhorrent" element, saura-, is that found in Sauron, who plays a rather large role in Celebrimbor's life.

4. The "same cause" referred to here is the Marred state of Arda brought up in _Morgoth's Ring_ (I believe) when the Valar try to work out between themselves what to do about Finwë and Míriel. The above note should make it clear that Celebrimbor's mother did not die giving birth to him, so "same cause" is not meant to imply that, or that Curvo was not content to allow her to recover from his birth.

5. "Artanga" is the Noldorin form of Angaráto, which is actually formed in the Telerin style of Quenya. According to _Peoples of Middle-earth_.6.

6. After much searching, I finally was able to track down a sentence diagram of a sentence comparable to Tyelperinquar's (Google "English Grammar Revolution" and go to the Diagramming Sentences Index. Then go to "E. elliptical clauses"/"Elliptical clauses"), so I can definitively state that the correct for of the sentence actually is, "He knows more than I (know)." In case there are any grammar sticklers (or lay people like me) out there wondering.


	11. X: A Linguist's Rebellion

Summary: Angaráto delivered Thingol's Ban in his perfect Vanyarin accent, and never again returned to Menegroth.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 67<p>

Maedhros is in Mithrim, celebrating Findecáno's begetting day, when Arafinwë's children return from Menegroth, weeks earlier than expected. He is in the King's study, along with his uncle and Macalaurë and Findecáno, and they are sharing the last bottle of the wine from Aman between themselves. The alcohol has undoubtedly loosened tongues and dulled memories, as Findecáno and Macalaurë—never the closest of cousins, even before Losgar—are fondly reminiscing over their favorite ballads, as though no tension lies between them. As though Findecáno does not think Macalaurë a coward; as though Macalaurë does not think Findecáno a fool. Maedhros is wondering idly whether to look into the possible medical repercussions of keeping his family in a constant state of low-level inebriation, as it apparently works miracles for ensuring they get along.

"The real test," he muses aloud, "would be Turukáno and Curufinwë. Or possibly Moryo and Alarcambo." Nolofinwë glances up from the fire, quirks a wry smile.

"You're considering it too?" he inquires pleasantly, and, since Maedhros can't quite work out whether to be insulted by the implication that his uncle is surprised to find they agree on something, he smiles back.

"Absolutely," he says. Nolofinwë nods speculatively—

—and Macalaurë and Findecáno choose that moment to burst into tears over the fate of a fictional maiden.

"Not," he and Nolofinwë amend at the exact same time. Nolofinwë laughs, and Maedhros raises his glass in a self-mocking toast, and that is when Alarcambo throws open the study doors hard enough that they slam into the walls, gouging craters into the hard oak. Findecáno jerks at the noise, elbow knocking Macalaurë's glass from the table. It shatters on the floor, and Nolofinwë's clerk—just now scuttling in, propelled by Ingoldo, trying to reach his brother's side—shoots a look of sheer poison at Alarcambo's oblivious back.

"Your highness—so sorry—Prince Angaráto, this is most—"

"It's quite alright, Órelion," Nolofinwë interrupts, suddenly sober and studying Alarcambo closely. He is entirely too still, blue around the lips, ice water dripping from the ends of his tangled hair, fists clenched, muscles twitching along his jaw. Ingoldo has one hand hovering uncertainly over his shoulder, as though unwilling to make contact, seems torn between giving some explanation and simply removing his brother from the room.

"Angaráto?" Nolofinwë prompts, and Maedhros hears the fear: has the Enemy pierced the Girdle of Melian; is it already too late to save Hithlum? Macalaurë reaches across the table to grasp Maedhros' hand; he fumbles clumsily to curl his left hand around the right-handed hilt of the dagger Macalaurë neglected to leave with the armsman. Still Alarcambo does not speak, seeming transfixed unblinkingly on some spot right before his eyes. Maedhros is rising from his seat to sound the alarm when Findecáno smiles.

"This certainly is a treat," he beams, waving at Maedhros to sit, beckoning Alarcambo closer, soothing calm. "Here I had resigned myself to celebrating without you. Is Aikanáro here as well?" Ingoldo's head jerks in an aborted half-nod; he bites his lip, finally drops his hand to Alarcambo's shoulder.

"What a wonderful surprise," Findecáno says in the same bland, unruffled manner. Then he nods teasingly at the doors, taunts, "Is this how you say hello in Sindarin?" Ingoldo flinches, but something in Alarcambo relaxes—or snaps.

"From this day forth, the tongue of the Noldor shall be neither heard nor spoken by the Sindar, lest they be held as Kinslayers and betrayers of kin unrepentant, by the order of King Elwë Singollo," he reports in his distant, bell-tuned accent. And though Maedhros can feel Macalaurë already stiffening in outrage, can feel his own anger rising coldly, his lips curl in the approximation of a smile.

* * *

><p>Author's Note:<p>

Alarcambo is the mother-name I devised for Angaráto, and it means "swift tongue". Just as Angaráto calls Maedhros by his disfavored name (Nelyafinwë), Maedhros calls Angaráto by his.

At first glance, the irony that Maedhros finds so amusing might not be readily apparent, though the use of Elwë Singollo is a clue.


	12. XI: Academic Discussion

Summary: Young Artaher sits in as his father and uncle offer conflicting theories about the motivating force behind Thingol's ban.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 70<p>

"You know you've offended Thingol," Ingoldo-who-is-now-Finrod murmured over the table, not quite looking Father in the eyes. Artaher, sitting low in a high-backed chair meant for adults, sunk so that only his eyes were level with the tabletop, ready to duck if Father got angry. It wasn't that Father got violent when angry, not the way Tyelperinquar's father did. When Father was angry he talked, and something about the unending litany of words spilling over words reminded Artaher of that day when the Light died and Great-grandfather was murdered and Fëanáro—newly king and mad with grief—damned himself to the Everlasting Darkness.

Most of his uncles and their cousins had learned some degree of forge-work from Fëanáro as children. Father had learned speech-craft, the subtleties of the written and spoken word.

Father scoffed, head bent low over the table as he carefully transcribed a draft account of the stock of Dorthonion's larder into the storeroom logbook. It was to be the first winter their people spent in Dorthonion, and they would most likely be cut off from any outside aid. Father was almost fanatical in his drive to be prepared, that those few under his and Uncle Aikanáro's command would not suffer. Artaher would be sent to Dor-lómin before Dorthonion's early winter set in, since Father had received no reply from Curufinwë Atarinkë.

Artaher knew the complete disregard of his letter had hurt Father, who had always counted Atarinkë the dearest of his friends; and that having to send him to Dor-lómin had forced Father to repurpose supplies that might have been used by the people during the long winter. Father had postponed sending him away as long as possible in hopes that Atarinkë would ultimately respond, and it was now unlikely Artaher would arrive in Dor-lómin before the first deep frost of the season.

For himself, Artaher was both glad and regretful of the outcome. While he had no desire to stay in Dorthonion for the winter (it was already too cold, and just breaking autumn to the south,) he was not looking forward to being thrown into a completely new environment; he had never seen Uncle Findecáno's princedom. He would have enjoyed Tyelperinquar's company for the season, but Uncle Aikanáro had told him it was probably best that he not interact with the Fëanárioni more than necessary. He could admit that the prospect of being trapped in Atarinkë's fortress, without the protection Father or Aikanáro's presence would have given him, was not a comforting thought. Neither was the idea of being sent to Dor-lómin, where he knew from experience that his closest agemate would be Naltariel, the daughter of one of Findecáno's captains; she had been a baby at the time of the Flight. He took solace in that he would not be trapped in Menegroth as Aunt Artanis had suggested; Father had once bitterly described it as 'an irredeemable warren-pit of skulking hypocrites' when he had not known Artaher was listening.

"Singollo has offended me," Father said, voice unmuffled despite his posture. "I note you've made no attempt to scold _him_ in the meantime." Ingoldo-who-is-Finrod sighed, casting his gaze around the small dining room, where Father liked to work in the mornings because the sun shone directly through the window and lit the whole space without needing to be augmented by candles.

"The Ban is a kind enough punishment when the crime was murder," he lectured in his false patience. Father's head snapped up, and Artaher flinched lower, saw beneath the table as Father uncrossed his legs and planted his feet.

"Do not patronize me," he hissed. "The design of the Ban—as you see it—is to force those who committed murder to constantly remember their victims. It would be a fitting punishment, but not kind. Furthermore, it does not achieve the purpose you suppose it has. Or have you forgotten that the Teleri, too, spoke Quenya?" Ingoldo-who-is-Finrod winced, made as if to speak, but Father overrode him. "By your reasoning, Singollo must have also forgotten this fact, or else he believes that all of the third host in Aman have fallen mute, rejecting the tongue they grew up speaking—which they themselves helped to devise!—because of Fëanáro's madness. Is this the king—the idiot you pledge yourself to, Ingoldo?" When Ingoldo-who-is-Finrod did not answer, Father did it for him.

"No. You were never so foolish as to pledge yourself to a lackwit. But you would rather believe this sentimental drivel than see the truth. Singollo is threatened by so many foreign princes, and if he can suborn their authority by forcing them to give up their native tongue, to speak his instead, he retains some measure of power over them, however symbolic." Father made a particularly vicious stroke of pen against page.

"It's a power play, Ingoldo. Nothing but a power play. Let him be insulted to find me unwilling to treat with him, or his people—the Sindar are welcome in Dorthonion if they will learn our tongue and have a desire to work a land made desolate by proximity to the Enemy whom Singollo has ignored all these yéni. But I will not force my people, who committed no evil, to give up their mother-tongue to satisfy some manipulative Avarin king hiding in his caves." He glanced up from his work.

"Nor your conscience, Ingoldo," he added.

* * *

><p>Author's Notes:<p>

On Artaher's age: Why is he still a child when he's been in Middle-earth for 70 years? Simple: years of the sun are much shorter than Valian years. Artaher was 24 when he arrived in Middle-earth. A Valian year is roughly 10 years of the sun, thus, by FA 70, Artaher is only 31 Valian years old, which by my figuration is around 15. I have actually spent the time working out how Valian years compare to sun years to human age. (Of course there's all the extra complications of possible variations in age rate for those elves who recentishly left Valinor, and how soon they would start aging at the rate of sun years, and I've basically got the system working how I want it, but I can't lay it out coherently here. Ask me if you're curious.)

My head-canon re: Thingol's Ban is heavily influenced by an interpretation where Thingol declares that the Noldor will learn to speak the language of those they had slain at Alqualondë and remember their crime with every word they speak. To which I in outraged confusion reply, "But the Teleri who were murdered at Alqualondë spoke (a dialect of) Quenya…"

(So the Teleri considered it a separate language, but it was close enough to Quenya to be understood by everyone else in Aman, and different enough from Sindarin that the Exiles had to learn Sindarin. Proof that Telerin Quenya isn't the same as Sindarin? Fine: Angaráto and Findaráto are the father-names of Angrod and Finrod. Angaráto and Findaráto were constructed in the _Telerin_ style; their true forms in Noldorin Quenya would have been Artanga and Artafindë (_Peoples of Middle-earth_ 346). So, the fact that we get Angrod and Finrod in _The Silmarillion_ as their Sindarin names shows that, while they might have been similar, Telerin Quenya and Sindarin are sufficiently diverse as to be considered different languages.)

However, Thingol can be assumed to have been distraught at the news, thus not thinking clearly, and there's a poetry to the idea of him wanting to make the Noldor remember their victims every time they speak, so.

On the possible political motivations of Thingol's Ban, re: symbolic power over the Noldor: I, personally, believe that that outcome was incidental to Thingol. However, as someone who has dabbled in the study of five languages at this point (English, Spanish, Latin, German and Quenya) as well as political science and the narratives of culture and imagined communities, I am firmly of the opinion that these kinds of decisions _do _give the decider a measure of power over those affected. The English tried to stamp out the Welsh language when they wanted to consolidate power over Wales (and probably did the same everywhere else in their long colonial history), and one of the strongest ties the various city-states that eventually became Italy had to each other was not culture or history, which varied from region to region, but language. I could write a dissertation, but I'm trying… hang on, could I actually do this for my thesis? Could I seriously, actually—not the point. I'm trying to cut down on author's notes, so I'll leave it at that and go ponder whether I could actually manage to work an International Studies paper to focus on Tolkien…


	13. XII: In A Name

Summary: Artaher discusses a girl and the Ered Wethrin with Findecáno, and receives a name.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 71<p>

"I thought I'd find you here," Findecáno said as he squeezed himself into the small space between the rafters and the ceiling. Artaher felt his pulse leap wildly at the unexpected intrusion but was careful not to jump; he was perched precariously close to the attic window. In the half-gloom, he couldn't tell whether the prince was angry or not—but then a cloud shifted and sunlight briefly flashed over Findecáno's wry smile. "You're hiding from Laegalad again, aren't you?" Artaher ducked his head.

"She keeps pestering me," he complained. Findecáno laughed, something wistful in the sound.

"You're close to her age, so she sees you as a playmate," he explained, amused sympathy keeping his tone from being over stern. "Once there are other children for her to play with she'll leave you alone." Artaher didn't answer. There were no other children in Dor-lómin, and probably wouldn't be for a long time; the siege was too new, untested, and life in the northlands of Beleriand still too hard for anyone to consider bringing children into it.

Leaning forward, Artaher traced another line of distant Ered Wethrin in chalk across his slate board, a gift from Atarinkë from before the Ban. It had been meant as a tool he could use to complete his studies without the undue waste of parchment. Father had yet to find him another tutor, so Artaher used it as a drawing pad, an endless cycle of sketch drawn over the faded remains of sketch. Sometimes he pretended he would hand the slate in for assessment and spent hours staring at rocks, magnifying their properties in his pictures and tentatively labeling their type. Today he just wanted to capture the essence of the voice he heard calling to him from the southeast.

"That's quite good," Findecáno said when Artaher uncurled from his hunched position over the drawing to check it against the scene through the window. "It's a shame they're going to be covered in snow while you're here; they're beautiful in the fall and spring. All the colors."

"I don't mind the snow," Artaher said, swinging his feet through the darkness yawning between his perch and the far off floor. He looked to the mountains soaring strong up out of the earth. "It hides less of them then the trees."

"Does it?" Findecáno asked absently, peering around.

"It's like a sheet. The form underneath is still—" he stopped. Findecáno was staring at the rafter he was sitting on, his eyes tracking intently. "Never mind."

But Findecáno smiled broadly, even as his hand slapped down over a scurrying spider and ground it into the wooden beam beneath him with rather more force than was necessary. "No, tell me. It's interesting; I've never thought about the mountains themselves as anything other than a canvas for the trees."

"The snow doesn't really hide the shape of the mountains when you look at them from far away," Artaher began hesitantly, growing bolder when Findecáno nodded thoughtfully. "It gives them an air of mystery, but you can still imagine the forms beneath it, the ways they climb to higher altitudes."

"You astound me," Findecáno laughed when he paused for breath, and Artaher fell obligingly silent. "Never have I heard someone speak of mountains so uniquely, Orodreth."

"Orodreth?" Artaher repeated. It was Sindarin, the language Father had taught him years ago and now refused to speak. Many of the people of Dor-lómin only spoke Sindarin, even when they were in entirely Noldorin company, as though they believed, like Ingoldo-who–is-Finrod, that they could absolve their crimes by sacrificing their language.

For the most part Findecáno had spoken Quenya since Artaher's arrival, but he tended to use Sindarin names and sometimes sang familiar songs in an alien tongue. "Orodreth," Artaher said again, turning it over in his mouth musingly. "For me?"

"If you like it," Findecáno shrugged. "Make sure you come down for dinner," he added, levering himself off the rafters to drop down through the sea of dust motes and land on the balls of his feet.

"I will," Artaher promised to the gold-stringed braids below. Findecáno shot him one last smile before he was gone. Artaher looked back down at the picture in his lap, but made no move to continue drawing. He rolled the smooth stub of chalk between his fingers, thinking.

"Orodreth," he murmured to the distant presence of the Ered Wethrin. "Orodreth."

* * *

><p>As you may have noticed from the week-long delay, I've recently started school again. Posting during the week is not really conducive to my schedule, so from now on I'll be posting on Friday. Yes, that means the next chapter will be up in less than two days time (assuming I don't read it and decide it needs massive revising).<p> 


	14. XIII: That Which Is Valued Greatly

Summary: Artaher contemplates the value of the Silmarils and just why he followed his father to Endor.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 90<p>

The Silmarils made sense to Artaher. Where others saw inexplicable evil arising from pure good, he saw the truth. That which is freely given or cheaply earned is held of little value. That which is greatly valued must therefore be dearly won.

It was right that the Silmarils' recovery should carve a swathe of agony and atrocity across the face of Arda Marred. That the Valar, who shaped the world, had coveted them spoke volumes of their worth, justified the tragedies which had befallen the Noldor since their loss.

The pale light of the moon glittered over Dor-lómin's distinctive mist, casting a soft, silver blanket over the land. His right arm, pressed against the thick glass of the window, was already numb from the leeching chill, a sharp contrast to his left arm, loosely embraced by the heavy curtains that insulated the fortress for the coldest months of winter.

He stayed quiet as the footsteps drew closer, barely audible, cushioned as they were by stockings and the bearskin rugs meant to trap in warmth. The girl paused by him, saying nothing, invisible on the other side of the thick cloth. She sighed after a moment, sitting at the other end of the sill, but without pulling aside the curtains. His chamber of light shrank as her weight pressed the curtains close to the glass.

"You had another nightmare about her, didn't you?" she asked at last. He tried to bristle, but it was hard when he could feel muscles jumping along his shoulders, twitching with cold.

"No," he lied. Laegalad ignored him.

"You know, if you would just wear stockings to bed, the ice goblins couldn't find you to slip you bad dreams," she said knowingly, pinching his bare toes through the blue velvet. He deliberately refused to smile, even though she wouldn't have been able to see. Somehow she had a way of knowing when he thought she was funny.

"That's stupid," he muttered instead. "There's no such thing as ice goblins, and if there were, they'd do more than give people bad dreams." After a moment, he added, hastily, "And stockings wouldn't keep them away, anyway."

"My mother said so," Laegalad sneered, as if that was all the proof she needed. Artaher felt a pang, brushed it off, pushed it back into the dark corner of his mind where a woman's face pleaded with him to stay behind.

"Your mother's an idiot, then," he snapped.

"No she isn't!" the girl snarled, and he could see her eyes blazing at him, even though the curtain lay between them. "Just because _you_ don't have your mother anymore doesn't mean you can say whatever you please about mine!"

Neither of them said anything for a while. Artaher made himself think of the Silmarils again, made himself remember their light from the few times he had seen them, made himself picture them shining through the blackness of Moringotto. Made himself not think of a woman who had always had time for him, made himself not think of a man who still didn't have any time for him.

He didn't know—didn't want to know—what occupied Laegalad's thoughts. But, after a while, she asked, in a thin voice, "Why _didn't_ you stay with her? You don't really seem very close with your father."

"Chasing a Silmaril," he whispered.

"There are three."

"I didn't mean those."

* * *

><p>Author's Notes: Despite having received his Sindarin name, Orodreth is referring to himself as Artaher here. The reason why is addressed later in the series, but the general idea is that he reverts to Quenya when emotionally distressed, or when feeling plagued by the Doom of the Noldor.<p>

Laegalad is the Sindarin name of Naltariel, mentioned first in Academic Discussion.

More distant musings:

Ah, number 13. The piece that started it all.


	15. XIV: Making Plans

Summary: The further cultural divisions the Noldor suffer in Beleriand.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 100<p>

Whenever he and Aikanáro visited Findecáno in Dor-lómin, their cousin made it a point to prepare the most lavish banquet the season and his storerooms allowed; penance, he said, for never finding the time to visit them in Dorthonion, and wouldn't hear a word against it. And so they were treated to soft, sweet cakes, and fruits served in their own juices, and wines, and all manner of meat. Things that would have been every day fare in Valinor had become delicacies in Endor.

"You should come some year in winter," Findecáno was saying blithely to Aikanáro, who was sipping on a glass of their cousin's finest red wine with the half-lidded expression of a cat in warm cream. "Our autumn harvest is exceptional." Some of the blissful savoring tightened around Aikanáro's eyes, but he smiled lazily in response, humming noncommittally and swirling the vintage just to see the span of its color.

Findecáno took Aikanáro's response as acquiescence—Findecáno always took everything except outright refusal as acquiescence—and turned expectantly to Angaráto. He sighed, stirring absently at the juices on his plate, left over from the strawberries that grew rampant over Dor-lómin in the spring.

"Findecáno, we could never leave Dorthonion for a whole season," he said, as gently as possible. "Especially not the winter season." Findecáno winced, the light from the chandeliers glinting off the gold tracing patterns through his braids, embarrassed and hurt and not quite hiding either emotion. Angaráto was never sure where his cousin had learned to emote; he knew no one more severe than Nolofinwë except Anairë.

"Of course," Findecáno murmured, busying himself with poking at what was left of his cake. "I keep forgetting the Pass freezes shut in winter." _Of course you do_, Angaráto thought but did not say, drawing swirls of tengwar over gleaming silver. Though roughly the same latitude as Dorthonion, Dor-lómin's proximity to the sea and the bowl created by the mountains on three of its borders kept the humidity high enough that it rarely froze solid and nearly never received sticking snow.

"It's not just the Pass," Aikanáro threw in conversationally, easing the slow burn of rejection Findecáno was prone to by turning it into a discussion. "Angaráto doesn't trust anyone else to breed his herds, and the goats are generally inclined for it starting as the days go shorter." With a smirk and a flick of his hair, he added, "He's turned into a regular boorish farmer, Fingonfin." Findecáno rolled his eyes, as much at the teasing as at the epessë, which Aikanáro had concocted in parody of Nolofinwë's chosen Sindarin name years ago.

"Well, I don't know that I can picture that," Findecáno teased back, drawn once again into contentment, and if it was at Angaráto's expense, he didn't mind; the lines of care had become too prominent on his cousin's face. "I'll have to visit you some time, just to see that you aren't exaggerating."

"Certainly," Aikanáro agreed gravely. "Midsummer would probably be the best time for it."

"Midsummer, then," Findecáno chirped, raising his glass in a toast.

"Dress warmly," Angaráto advised with a wry grin.

* * *

><p>Author's Notes:<p>

"…Findecáno always took everything except outright refusal as acquiescence…" I have this image in my head of Findecáno suggesting to Nolofinwë that they should rescue Maitimo, and Nolofinwë agreeing noncommittally, and Findecáno taking that as permission to run off half-cocked into Thangorodrim to save him.

"…nearly never received sticking snow." What about when Orodreth was talking about snow on the mountains? Ahem. Either the mountains collect snow, or, more likely, poor Orodreth was confused and was looking at the Mountains of Mithrim, which are far enough north that I (in no way a meteorologist) would say they could collect snow. Or maybe it was just exceptionally cold that winter =) Take your pick, I'm not fussy.

I am way off my schedule again. The reason is this chapter: I'm not happy with it (it sets up a larger, separate piece, but feels pointless on its own) and I haven't had time to overhaul it so I can be happy with it. So why am I posting it regardless? Because I looked at the date yesterday and realized it's been a year since Professor Klaus died. Prost Klaus. We miss you.


	16. XV: Midsummer Night's Dance

Summary: Orodreth, on the evening his future wife falls in love with him.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 240<p>

Celebrimbor had made the rings, and they are such a detailed reproduction of twining leaves that Orodreth is afraid that if he drops them he'll never again find them. He has worn them on a chain about his neck since his friend had given them to him, years and years ago, when Orodreth was a child who wrinkled his nose at the thought of marriage. Then, he had thought never to need them, but he accepted the rings after much urging, so as not to hurt Celebrimbor's feelings.

Now, the weight of the chain about his neck is a conscious sensation, and he has taken to playing with it when nervous, fingers sliding over the metal, nails clicking gently across the polished silver. Some part of him whispers that she would love the rings, particularly the one flecked with small rubies, bringing to mind Dor-lómin's springtime fields, when the strawberries grow wild. The greater part of him warns that she would appreciate the jewelry but not the commitment, watching her laugh appreciatively at some flattery Brannech whispered in her ear.

Her laugh is high and ringing, like flint made audible, and even as he leads her out to dance Brannech is wincing, as though he finds the sound unpleasant. Orodreth knows, also, that Laegalad's father will not approve of Brannech, who often speaks Quenya in the open, and that her dalliance with Brannech would end as soon as she heard him casually flouting Thingol's Ban; her father has Telerin blood on his hands and sees the deprivation of his mother-tongue as penance for his crimes.

Of course, his own interest is then in vain, for Father has made no secret of the contempt he holds for Thingol, and refuses to speak Sindarin, and his people, for the most part, follow his lead. But still, perhaps Lord Nelrúnen might recognize that Orodreth himself strove to speak Sindarin in his everyday life, despite his father's attitude, and would appreciate that.

He turns away from the ballroom, before the sight of Laegalad in Brannech's arms sours his mood beyond repair, and retires to the courtyard, sticking his hand in the fountain and watching as Tilion's light flows silver through his hands. A couple weaves their way out, arm in arm, and stop, giggling in embarrassment, when they realize he is there. He smiles vaguely at them in reassurance as they take their leave, mumbling slurred apologies, and contemplates dunking his head in the water, for not even the sight of the woman's breasts—ill-contained by mussed clothing—can distract him from the memory of Laegalad clad in a modest gown of shimmering silver and dark green.

His fingers slip over the rings, cool and warm to the touch, and he aches with the desire to present them to her, consequences be damned. _Not yet_, they seem to whisper, thrumming in his hand with life no mere trinkets should possess. _Wait a while longer._

"Of all the nerve!" Laegalad hisses, throwing herself down beside him by the fountain, arms crossed; Orodreth yelps, and nearly overbalances, only her reflexes saving him from an impromptu bath. Just like that, her ire seems soothed, and she bursts out laughing at his frozen expression. He takes her moment of mirth to make sure the rings are again concealed beneath his tunic.

"Whose nerve?" he asks hesitantly, heart hammering, unsure of when she arrived, whether she'd seen what he'd been holding.

"Oh, Brannech's," she says, uncaringly, still chuckling over his near fall. "The idiot thinks one dance makes it fair for him to steal a kiss." Orodreth is careful to remain sitting at the fountain, though the thought of Brannech's lips anywhere near Laegalad's is enough to set his fingers twitching. Some of his anger must show through his face, for she laughs anew, patting his arm consolingly.

"My father is sure to sort him out; there's no need to get up in arms against him," she teases, and Orodreth has the sudden, incongruous image of Fëanor drawing his sword on Fingolfin in Tirion, except his and Brannech's faces are superimposed over those of the princes. The idea's absurdity shakes him back to good-humor.

"I almost pity him," he says, grinning and not really pitying him at all. "Lord Nelrúnen can be...quite forceful." They trade identical, rueful grins, knowing from experience just how forceful a few pointed words could be when delivered by Fingon's right hand.

"You know, you have some nerve, too," she says, after they have fallen quiet and are looking up at the stars in silence. He glances down at her in confusion, and wonders when the difference between their heights had grown so little.

"How so?" he asks casually, looking away before the sight of starlight in her eyes drives him to foolishness.

"Well, I invite you here for old times' sake, and then you force me to spend the evening in the company of the local boys, which I am already obliged to endure every other day of the year," she chides, pretend and real irritation coloring her voice, bleeding more into actual annoyance the further into the diatribe she gets. "Prince or not, you could stand learn better manners, Orodreth."

"My apologies, Lady," he murmurs around the lump in his throat; she has a curious way of pronouncing his name, _Or_od_reth_, slurring the different syllables together. He stands, bows, and offers her his arm. "Join me in a dance?"

"I suppose I could spare a moment for an old playmate," she agrees stiffly, formally, reaching to accept his arm. Orodreth is still swallowing the sting of _playmate_ when their hands brush and lightning dances between them. Laegalad's eyes start up at his, wondering, and for a long moment they stand immobile beneath the moon and stars.

Laegalad looks away first, laughing breathlessly, and Orodreth follows suit, clearing his throat and trying to seem as awkwardly confused as she.

Against his breast, the rings sing, _Not long now._

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Yes, I do know it's been months. I got distracted by, of all things, the Half-Life fandom. I'm currently working on an AU series over there (not yet posted), but, in the meantime, I thought it really was high time to get this story up <em>since its's been finished since 2011<em>.

I feel compelled to defend Laegalad, who is not meant to imply that men know their feelings better than women. Orodreth is older than she is, and thus thinking about things like marriage, while Laegalad still half thinks of him as the mope-y little blond kid who would run away from her when she tried to play with him.

On a more scholarly note, _Peoples of Middle-earth_ claims that Orodreth's wife was "a Sindarin lady of the North" (350). At a stretch, Laegalad can claim to be such: she arrived in Middle-earth as an infant and grew up speaking Sindarin, at least.


	17. XVI: Semantics

Summary: Orodreth, introducing his betrothed to his father. It goes about as well as he feared it would.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 263<p>

"Please behave," he pleaded, hours before Laegalad even arrived. Father gave him a pointed look.

"When do I not?" Orodreth ignored that.

"And remember that she prefers Laegalad." Father rolled his eyes, sneering.

"She can prefer whatever she likes; her name is Naltariel," he said archly, but recanted at Orodreth's flash of panic. "Peace. I will try to honor her inane preferences." And he relaxed, just like that. When Father said he would do something, he did it.

o

Dinner passed in the silence Orodreth had grown up with, once his mother had been left behind in Valinor. It seemed awkward now with an outsider present; Orodreth felt Laegalad's growing anxiety, and welcomed the slight interruption of the storekeeper, speaking too low in Father's ear for Laegalad to catch the lilting strains of Quenya.

"He does not approve of me," she whispered once Father briefly excused himself, her voice brittle as thin glass, lips barely moving.

"He's never been very talkative," he apologized. A half-truth—in Orodreth's youth, there had been plenty of times when Father had had one rhyme or another rolling off his tongue. Those days had died with Father and Mother's first estrangement, though, and after the Ban Father had tended more towards grim silence. "Especially around people he's unfamiliar with. He'll open up after the meal. I promise."

o

Orodreth felt briefly claustrophobic when the meal ended and Father stood up from the table as though to leave. Then he paused halfway to the door, turned, and asked, "Would you care to join me on a walk?" Orodreth let out a breath he hadn't know he was holding, nearly faint with relief. Father's Sindarin, though formal, was perfectly accented, and Laegalad relaxed beside him.

"Certainly."

o

"What are the logistics of surviving here?" Laegalad fired off, when Father made no move to initiate a conversation.

And just like that, they were off. Laegalad was an apt study, and probably learned more about the running of Dorthonion in that one discussion than Orodreth had in all his years living there. Father nodded imperceptly at him over her head during a lull in conversation, a small smile lighting his eyes, and Orodreth, for a moment, believed that they might actually come to see each other as father and daughter.

o

Somehow, the conversation shifted to childhood exploits, and Father laughed as Laegalad concluded an anecdote of how she had once dyed Prince Fingon's formal robes in splotchy patches of purple on the eve of the midsummer feast during a prank that was meant for her older cousin.

"I seem to recall something similar occurring, once," he said, the slightest taunt in his voice as he glanced back at Orodreth. "To all three kings of Valinor." Laegalad rounded on him, delight and horror warring in her expression.

"You didn't."

"He did," Father contradicted airily. "Artaher was quite the troublemaker as a child." And just like that, Orodreth felt the evening spin out of all pleasantry. Laegalad stopped, feet rooted to the spot, staring at Father as though she couldn't quite believe her ears. Father caught the change in mood, glanced back, saw her expression, and froze over.

"Is there a problem?" he grit out. Laegalad looked to Orodreth for guidance, then, typically, ignored him when he warned her off from the confrontation.

"Those who speak that tongue shall be held as Kinslayers, and betrayers of kin unrepentant," she recited, like ice. Father's arm twitched, and Orodreth could see the familiar tirade building. He held out a hand, half in plea, half in command. Father swallowed, and forced something that resembled a wolf's toothy grin.

"I would hardly count a proper noun as use of an entire language," he managed, teeth surely drawing blood as they dug into his cheeks.

"Then you should know he prefers Orodreth," Laegalad shot back, not to be placated. Father whirled on him; Orodreth stared resolutely past his left ear, and tried not to watch as Father's face seemed to gray.

"I fear you shall find yourselves rather miserable in Dorthonion, in any case," he said delicately, in the same already-defeated tone Grandfather Finarfin had used arguing against the Flight, and in the same Noldorin-perfect Quenya. He left without another word.


	18. XVII: Warden of Tol Sirion

Summary: Finrod has a proposal for his nephew, and a wedding gift, all in one.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 265<p>

"The two of you seem well suited to each other," Finrod said, smiling sweetly off at the distance, into the West. Orodreth allowed him a moment to collect himself, and for a while they strode along in silence, the river Narog calmer than was typical and babbling nonsensically.

They had met near the Ivrin, halfway between Dorthonion and Nargothrond, and the place where he and Laegalad had determined to marry. Fingon would bear witness on behalf of the king and his own close friendship with Laegalad's parents.

"And you are certain your father will not attend?" Finrod probed, hesitantly, face cast over in concern. Orodreth scowled, kicking at a clod of dirt and watching it vanish in Narog's narrow but ever-increasing current.

"As all others present will be speaking the tongue he holds in contempt, I'd rather spare him the misery," he said bitterly. Finrod's frown deepened, but he made no reply, instead looking back to their horses, grazing freely and seemingly uninterested in following them.

"But you'll be there, won't you?" Orodreth asked, hesitantly, not quite daring to meet his uncle's eyes. "And Aunt Galadriel?" Finrod smiled suddenly, like the sun bursting through a cloud.

"Of course. And Aegnor, too." He felt some of his relief dim, and sighed.

"Not Aegnor," he corrected. "He doesn't want to incur my father's wrath as I have done."

"Did he tell you that?"

"Not in so many words. He said he was wary of alienating him, but—"

"Ah," Finrod held up a hand, forestalling his words. "I would ask you then not to resent his decision." Orodreth nodded stiffly, but fixed his gaze to the opposite bank. Finrod sighed.

"Do you know how many people your father exchanges correspondence with?" he asked, grabbing on to Orodreth's arm and gently turning him about so that he had no choice but to face him. Orodreth shook his head. "Four. Myself, Fingolfin, Aegnor and Fingon. Of the four of us, only Aegnor and Fingon receive anything other than bare reports about Dorthonion." He threaded their arms together, and continued their walk, more slowly than before, more meandering, his head down, watching his feet.

"Beleriand has not been kind to your father, Orodreth," he murmured. "He has, through various circumstances, been slowly cut off from those he was once close to."

"It's his own fault," Orodreth interrupted. "Nothing keeps him from making amends, save his own stubbornness."

"We may debate fault some other time," Finrod said, somewhat severely. "The fact remains that, of the two he still holds as close friends, one is already pledged to witness your wedding, which you feel will wound him. Out of love for my brother, I would not have him entirely cut off from all comfort in this land. Would you?"

"No," Orodreth sighed. "But it is such a simple thing to let come between friendships older than the sun."

"Your father would argue that is it no simple thing," Finrod replied, a somewhat wry curl to his lips, though his eyes were again shadowed. Orodreth snorted. "And you must remember that the majority of his friendships were set in Fëanor's house, and that is a rift he has tried to mend, to no avail. But, between us, Orodreth, I would advise you that it is your rejection of your former name that he finds intolerable, not your choice in wife, nor the tongue the two of you use."

He saw again the slow graying of his father's face, the way he went almost limp, tension drained suddenly, expression dulled into nothing. "Nevertheless, it is the name I prefer," he murmured. "Artaher—" he stopped, held out his hands helplessly. "We are different people, he and I. I cannot change that, any more than I can change the course of the Sirion." Finrod smiled sadly.

"Well do I understand your feelings in this matter. There are still those who question why I chose to abandon my amilessë, two hundred years later." He stopped at a point where the grey stone of the highlands leaped out suddenly from the grassy bank, forming a small shelf over the Narog. With a grin, he eased himself down theatrically, until he was sitting with his feet hanging over the edge, inches from the water. "My poor old bones."

"Do they trouble you, truly?" Orodreth worried, dropping down next to his uncle.

"No, but my rear does when I've been riding for days," he confessed cheekily, winking. Orodreth rolled his eyes.

"You are nothing but an over-grown child," he lamented to the world at large. Below, the Narog leaped and gurgled in agreement.

"I never claimed to be ought else," Finrod laughed freely, his merriment joining the river's and wending a brief melody. He tossed his head back, eyes closed, and turned his face toward the sun. Orodreth glanced after the horses, wandering nearer with indolent nonchalance, then lay back and stretched out over the warmed grey stone. Coming from Dorthonion, the more temperate climate of the south felt nearly balmy, and he could feel himself drifting deeper and deeper into a waking sleep, the Narog's discourse losing its structure, fading into a lullaby.

"Arothir," Finrod announced abruptly, pleased as an eaglet after its first flight. Orodreth focused one eye on him, tempted to ignore the odd proclamation and slide all the way to dreaming. Finrod sighed and reached down, splashing a handful of water in his face. Orodreth yelped at the cold, starting up and glaring at him.

"Arothir," Finrod pronounced again, more haughty than before, somehow.

"Congratulations," Orodreth sneered, wiping his face on his sleeve, shivering as a drop found its way down the front of his tunic.

"It's your name in Sindarin. I worked it out."

"My name is Orodreth, and that water is freezing."

"Yes, yes," Finrod waved, as though to brush aside his words. "But, logically, Arothir is the proper translation."

"Do you have a point?" he wondered crossly, shaking his collar out.

"You need not reject Artaher if you adopt its Sindarin form. Even," he said, over the bare beginnings of his protest, "if only as a secondary name, a title, if you will. You need not give up Orodreth, nor ever give out Arothir in introduction, but it will still be yours." Leaning in to deliberately catch his eye, Finrod added, more seriously, "And I guarantee the gesture alone would soothe Angaráto's grievance." Then he shrugged, whimsically. "And then we could all attend your wedding together. If a letter was sent now, it could reach both your father and Aegnor in time for them to arrive."

"A letter saying what?"

"Oh, you need not make some grand announcement or vain speech, simply state the details of your wedding, date, location and such, signed 'Arothir Orodreth'; Angaráto will notice." Smirking when Orodreth could think of no other reason to disagree, he said, "I'm brilliant, aren't I?"

"Only by comparison to your family, and considering that that family includes Master 'take on a pack of Balrogs single-handedly'…" Finrod laughed with him, as delighted by the rejoinder as Orodreth.

"Not to mention our dear cousin, Sir 'plays inappropriate music in the midst of terror'," he teased. Orodreth endeavored to hold a straight face.

"Does High Prince Fingon know you disparage his musical habits behind his back?"

"I'll be sure to let him know," Finrod assured him, before they both dissolved into another fit of giggles, the river answering and magnifying their mirth.

"So?" Finrod prompted, when they had again lapsed into unbroken silence.

"I will do as you suggest if you truly believe that it will comfort my father, and reconcile him to my choice."

"I do believe that," Finrod said. "And I believe he will appreciate the invitation."

"Then it will be done."

"Good." Plucking a blade of grass and rolling it between his fingers, Finrod turned his gaze again towards the sun, some of its light just now settling behind the distant Ered Eglador in the west. "Now… have you given any thought to where you shall live?"

"We had thought to find ourselves a place in Dor-lómin," Orodreth answered. "Why?" For a while, Finrod did not answer, frowning pensively, as the shadows from Eglador stretched further across the plains.

"You are aware, I think," Finrod said slowly, "that Nargothrond is growing day by day." Orodreth nodded, mystified. "I left the governance of Ladros to your uncle long ago, but maintained control of Minas Tirith, as I saw no reason why the two should compete with each other for my attention. Now even the lands for miles around Nargothrond are included under my rule, and I find that I have little time to spare for my outpost to the north." He paused, glanced sternly at Orodreth, and added, "An oversight which the Eldar can ill-afford, considering what it watches over." Orodreth nodded slowly, feeling his uncle's frown curl his own lips.

Suddenly, Finrod heaved a sigh, tossing the blade of grass into the Narog. It whirled end over end, a ship without a captain, before it vanished in the leaping silver. "My heart is ill at ease," he confessed. "I fear it will be until I have an able warden set over Tol Sirion."

"Have you given any thought to whom you would entrust it?" Orodreth asked, folding his legs into a bow as he leaned forward to confer with his uncle. A grin twitched across Finrod's face, slightly rueful.

"I had thought to offer it to you and your wife," he confessed. "But I fear you have confounded me in your rather admirable habit of thinking ahead." Orodreth sat back, searching for the joke that must be forthcoming, and feeling more baffled every second it delayed.

"Truly?" he probed at last, when Finrod made no move to speak. Finrod smiled sadly, and Orodreth had a sudden vision of himself through his uncle's eyes: full-grown and yet to claim his place as a prince of the Noldor. He found he could not resent Finrod's pity as much as he would like, for even Celebrimbor had his growing talents in the forge to distinguish him as a Fëanorion, while all Orodreth had to show for his time in Ennor was his betrothal. It wasn't something he thought of consciously, but he often caught himself measuring his achievements to those of his peers, and almost always came up lacking.

"If you would have it, I would give it to you," Finrod answered gently.

"If you truly think me equal to the task—"

"More than equal."

"I will have to discuss it with Laegalad," Orodreth said, brow furrowed in thought. "But I can see no reason why she would not find it agreeable."

"Excellent," Finrod exclaimed, and the last light of the setting sun glowed warm over his smile.

* * *

><p>Author's Notes:<p>

The People of Middle-earth mentions that Finrod's family addressed him by his mother-name, Ingoldo. His abandonment of it when he chose his Sindarin name seemed indicative to me of a fundamental difference in the way Finrod conceived himself and the way his family conceived him.

Orodreth's name: Hoo boy. Apparently Tolkien couldn't figure out what he wanted from this kid. He started out with Artaresto/Rodreth (which Orodreth changed to 'Orodreth' himself, because he loves mountains) and then, late in the game, became Artaher/Arothir. However, it is likely that Tolkien would have kept Orodreth, even though it wasn't precisely the correct translation of Orodreth's Quenya name. I've tried to work all of that in to my Orodreth, and the only thing I'm missing is Artaresto… maybe it can be his mother name? (Artaher Artaresto sounds stupid~)

The Ered Eglador is the unnamed chain of mountains at the head of the river Nenning (I named them).


	19. XVIII: Far-reaching Consequence

Summary: Sitting in conference in Mithrim, Angaráto knows his words in Doriath centuries before will bring ruin to Beleriand.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 355<p>

"In short, we can see little reason to launch an offensive at this point in time," Nelyafinwë concluded with a muted shrug, his left hand folded over the stump of his right wrist on the table. Somehow the posture was one of relaxation, not a sign of shame; over the centuries, Nelyafinwë had overcome his initial disgust with his body after Angamando, which he had once decried as Moringotto's third great victory over his father.

"So say you from Himring," Aikanáro started, ass-stubborn as any of the Fëanárioni and determined that his words should have some effect, but Angaráto had, in the brief moments between Nelyafinwë's final word and his brother's first, caught the lingering perusal of Nelyafinwë's sword-grey eyes.

He fell back against his chair, jarring himself so badly that his teeth clipped his tongue, but he didn't feel the flash of pain over the sudden, enveloping darkness of the Prophecy in the North. His pen—a gift from Grand-uncle Ingwë and one of the more incongruous items he had discovered to have found its way in his baggage after the Flight—fell from his limp fingers with a clatter that caused Aikanáro to stumble slightly in his persuasions. It was a labor to draw deep, even breaths, to stop them from wheezing in his throat.

Findecáno, at his father's right, twirled one of his gold-laced braids around his finger, frowning in his direction, concern drawing out the blue in his eyes, inherited from their grandmother.

Now Ingoldo was speaking, softly lamenting that he had heard of none of the woes Aikanáro attested to, was turning to Artaher for confirmation, who was shrugging apologetically and saying that he had seen no sign of activity from Moringotto from Tol Sirion, but Angaráto knew it didn't matter; if Nelyafinwë but gave his support, all others would follow suit, and Nelyafinwë would not speak in support of Nolofinwë's proposal because once, almost three centuries ago now, Angaráto had lost his temper and revealed the truth of the Kinslaying to Elwë in Menegroth.

He stumbled from the council in a daze at its conclusion, almost missing Findecáno, who pulled him forcefully into a side room, sitting him down and sending a servant for brandy, trying to convince him, once he discerned the source of his distress, that Nelyafinwë had long forgiven him for his indiscretion before Singollo's throne, but all Angaráto could see was Beleriand in flames to the backdrop of his proud, bitter words.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: While I find the idea of vindictive!Nelyo intriguing and will admit that I originally intended for Nelyo's motivation to be revenge, I would caution the reader that this piece is from Angaráto's point of view, and he is not necessarily a reliable narrator (especially not later in his life).<p>

What seems less obvious now than when I wrote the piece is where it's meant to fit into canon. At the beginning of "Of the Ruin of Beleriand" we learn that "Fingolfin […] pondered once more an assault upon Angband" and that "Among the chieftains of the Noldor Angrod and Aegnor alone were of like mind with the King; for they dwelt in regions whence Thangorodrim could be descried, and the threat of Morgoth was present to their thought" (_The Silmarillion_ 175).


	20. XIX: Birthright

Summary: A father-to-be reflects upon the reality of living in exile. What does it mean to be Noldorin?

* * *

><p>First Age Year 361<p>

He slid into the room before the hinges shrieked loudest, but still saw his wife stirring in bed, roused by the noise. She tossed her head back, staring past her shoulder. Her eyes did not quite pierce the gloom of early morning, but she was alert enough for him to realize he had deluded himself to believe she had missed his initial departure.

"What is it?" she asked, the solitary note of fear echoing through their bond, louder than she would have liked. Her wash of irritation brought a tired smile to his lips.

"False alarm. Just a scouting party from Eithel Sirion." He unhooked his sword belt, propped it up by the bed, and kicked his boots off. The dawn was now just hours off, and, after a brief internal debate, he decided he didn't care if his captains saw him in rumpled clothes. He flopped on top of the thin quilt without getting undressed.

"Must they trouble you with every little trifle?" she groused, curling into his arms as much as the swell of their first child would allow. He buried his face in her hair, breathing deep, willing away the tension still wound deep in his muscles.

"I am the warden of the tower," he mumbled against the crown of her head. "If the Enemy does make an assault on Beleriand, he is most likely to do it here, or through Maglor's Gap. I can hardly command the forces of Angband to wait upon our rest." She scoffed, and he smiled.

"Though I'm certain that, once they'd felt your displeasure, they would be sure never to provoke it again, Naltariel."

There was a beat of silence in which he could have corrected himself, _Laegalad_, but somehow he couldn't bear to follow through, even as she stiffened in his arms. An elbow razored between his ribs, pushing him away. He flopped over, laying more fully on his back, giving her space, with a sigh.

"I hate it when you do that, Orodreth," she said finally, after a silence he measured in the incremental twinges of a headache settling between his eyes.

"Do forgive my tongue for slipping before the sun is roused," he grumbled back, squeezing the upper hollows of his eyes between his middle finger and thumb. Far from easing the pain, the motion seemed to exacerbate it, entrenching it more deeply in his hroä, reaching it into his fëa.

"It is not your tongue that grieves me, but your heart, for that is where the slip occurs," she said gravely. He sighed, and wished again that the child had arrived. The closer she came to the world, the more her personality seemed to bleed through, and though he loved her dearly already, his daughter's character was of a very different sort than her mother's. Where Laegalad would have argued, his daughter lamented, and made him feel a bully.

"Sorry," he muttered, not sorry at all, but feeling guilty nonetheless. He rolled over, back to his wife, and shut his eyes, determined to get some rest before the sun rose and the daily business of watching the North began again. A hand, long and bony, curled about his wrist; her insistence niggled at his mind.

"Why does our child grieve you so?" she demanded, cushioning her head in his hair, face pressed against the back of his neck.

_She could never_, but his throat constricted around the words, and Naltariel — Laegalad released his wrist to caress his face, stroking between his eyes, down the bridge of his nose and up again, dispelling some of the headache.

"I know you, Artaher," she whispered in his ear. "I know Orodreth better, but never forget that we met when you were still Artaher Valinorion. That tongue is a tongue of grief, and you only began using it again when you learned of our daughter. What doom lies over us that such a joyful time should lead you to mourn?"

"Only the Doom of the Noldor," he said lowly, as the future stretched bleak before his eyes. A future where his children, direct descendents of a prince of the Noldor born in Aman, never spoke Quenya, never saw the Light. A future where Noldorin customs were exchanged for Sindarin; where every day their native culture became more and more obsolete, until they were Noldorin in name only. No matter how she tried, his wife could offer him no comfort for the cold echoes of the Prophecy in the North. "Nothing more."

* * *

><p>Author's Notes: I can only offer up my final two years of college as reason for why I've been absent for so long; that, and wandering muses and an honors thesis that literally almost killed me (anxiety is an increasing problem for me). It's been a long time since I've thought of my Noldor, sitting neglected in a corner, though I continue to claim <em>The Silmarillion<em> as my principle fandom. I do hope to at least finish posting this drabble series, though my life is in a bit of a state right now, so I could fall off the planet again shortly.

As a complete sidenote, re-reading this piece and trimming it into shape for publishing, I find myself wondering what could have been if I had made Laegalad a lady of the Sindar. I imagine Sindarin-Laegalad struggling to truly grasp the significance of the Doom of the Noldor; I imagine her arguing (to herself and to her husband) that the Doom didn't apply to their children, surely, for they were only half Noldorin. I imagine the conflicts she must have faced within her own family, for marrying not just a prince of the Noldor, but the prince whose father disdains Sindarin and King Elu Thingol's authority. _AU Sindarin-Laegalad may have to be a thing that is explored and I still don't know what possessed me not to go down that road to begin with._


	21. XX: The Hand of Fate

Summary: Aegnor and Orodreth discuss the Men of Doriath and Angrod. Finduilas meets a woman and introduces Aegnor to her.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 383<p>

"Uncle 'Nor! Uncle 'Nor!" Finduilas' voice squealed, though they couldn't see her from the simple cabin. Aegnor smiled tolerantly in his direction, even as they both winced at the girl's high-pitched calls.

"She's adorable," his uncle said; Orodreth grinned.

"Good thing." Aegnor laughed, though his hands remained steady as he splinted the Man's ankle. His uncle had been talking freely with his patient when he arrived, but Orodreth's presence seemed to have stilled the Man's tongue, and his eyes were dropped firmly to the floor.

"Uncle 'Nor, _quick_!"

"Coming," Aegnor called as he finished, shaking his head fondly. To the Man he added, "You ought to rest easy for a few days; I'll be back to look at it again then." The Man nodded, a shy smile darting across his lips before he saw Orodreth watching and went stoic again.

"Strange fellow," Orodreth murmured to his uncle when they had left the Man's home.

"You intimidate them," Aegnor chided. "You and your father both watch them like you want to pounce."

"I expect my father does," Orodreth said wryly. Aegnor grimaced, all the confirmation Orodreth needed. "I didn't expect Uncle Finrod's decision to teach them Sindarin would go over well."

"No," Aegnor agreed. "Even less when Angaráto found the lesson plans he'd drawn up to teach them Quenya were for naught."

"Is he still —"

"Hasn't sent Ingoldo so much as a post-script since." Orodreth shook his head. He remembered his conversation with Finrod, so many years ago. It seemed his father was determined to burn yet more bridges.

"I worry for him," he said softly, frowning now. "We visited him briefly along the way here — there's hardly any light left in his eyes." A glance up at Aegnor showed his uncle nodding in solemn agreement.

"You father has always struggled to hold joy in his heart. Even in Aman. But here, with the Enemy so close… " Aegnor shook his head as Orodreth wondered — even in Aman? In the Blessed Realm his father had been unhappy? "This isolation does him no good. I wish —"

Finduilas raced up around a hill, braids half-undone and face red from running. "Uncle '_Nor_," she admonished, skidding to a halt before them and seeing no reason for their delay. At once Aegnor's countenance changed, though he laid a hand briefly on Orodreth's shoulder in apology for the abrupt end to their conversation.

"Many apologies, Princess," he teased, bending down to sweep the child into his arms. "What is so urgent?"

"Over there!" Finduilas pointed back the way she had come. "There's a _lady_!"

"You don't say," Aegnor gasped, raising his eyebrows over Finduilas' head at Orodreth, who shrugged, nonplussed. "And what is so remarkable about this lady?"

"Her head is broken," Finduilas dutifully reported, her golden eyebrows knit together. "You can fix her, can't you?" Orodreth blinked, exchanged a look with his uncle. Already, Aegnor was moving, offering Finduilas to her father, asking the girl where this lady might be found. Orodreth was struck once again by his uncle's care for the Edain of Dorthonion.

They rounded the corner Finduilas had come from, Orodreth struggling to keep up with Aegnor's long strides, and the Tarn Aeluin lay spread out before them. By the water's edge a dark haired woman was scrubbing clothes. At the sound of their approach she looked up, her reflection shimmering across the water, quick as a startled bird. Her eyes fell immediately on Aegnor, who froze where he stood, as though turned to stone.

* * *

><p>Author's Notes: I realized while writing this that Andreth and Finduilas ended up being the same age based on my timeline. Of course, at 22 Andreth is a young woman and Finduilas is still a young child. Might this be a factor in Aegnor's future avoidance of Andreth?<p>

Finduilas thinks there must be something wrong with Andreth's head because she insists (despite clearly being an adult) that they are the same age.

Aegnor the healer. Fun fact: I originally envisaged Telufinwë Ambarussa as a healer as well. Maybe he and Aikanáro studied together?

The language of the Edain: _The Silmarillion_ tells us that Finrod took it upon himself to teach them Sindarin. Angaráto resented both the Edain and Finrod when the House of Bëor settled in Dorthonion, as it forced his people, who had primarily spoken Quenya within their borders, to speak Sindarin in their dealings with the Edain. It also caused friction between Aikanáro and Angaráto, who grows very fond of them even outside his doomed love of Andreth.

I'm currently stuck in the terrible predicament of wanting this story to begin differently than it does but not knowing if it will confuse things if I alter it. The first chapter/drabble/part currently would fit much better in a piece revolving around Angaráto and Eldalôtë, and a much better way to open this story would be focused on Angaráto and Artaher. Thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.


	22. XXI: Dagor Bragollach

*** Summary: The beginning of the end. (Marked mature for battle gore.)

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><p>First Age Year 455<p>

The Oath of Barahir

They had done what they could to reach Aegnor, cutting themselves off from all reinforcement. The Elf Lord was fatally wounded, the broken haft of a spear still jutting from his crumpled armor. They dared not remove it, and Barahir blinked sweat from his eyes as he parried another blow. Above them, the great pines shrieked as the fire spread through them as though they were tinder. At last he understood why the princes had viewed Dorthonion's drying climate with trepidation.

"Go," Aegnor murmured, shoving Beren's clumsy ministrations away and laboring to his feet. His face was almost dreamy, save for the black rage burning in his eyes. "Protect my brother." Barahir saw death in the gaze of the deathless, and nodded.

"I swear it," he promised. The last survivors of the House of Bëor fled westward as Aegnor made his last stand, and perished in a rain of fire.

o

The Fall of Dorthonion

The land itself writhed under Morgoth's assault, hindering them as they struggled, racing their foes to the western valleys, where Angrod's people dwelt. For every league they gained, they lost a man, until finally Barahir no longer knew who remained in his company.

Smoke in the air made it hard to distinguish friend from enemy, the ash falling around their heads was a sick parody of Dorthonion's absent winter snow. He turned a stumble into a last-minute leap, clearing the trampled remains of a fence and realizing, with a jolt, that they had reached the main settlement.

Like his brother, Angrod stood alone, his two swords flashing defiance against both the Balrogs from the north and the spiders from the south. Even as they rushed to his side, Barahir saw one of Ungoliant's brood swipe at the Noldorin prince, catching him across the face with a spiny leg.

Angrod fell.

o

Last Rites

He bore Angrod with them as they fled, the sodden mess of Angrod's eyes running down his face, down Barahir's neck. The weight of his broken promise was heavier than the prince; Barahir dreaded bearing news to Nómin that both his brothers had fallen.

They claimed a high ground, above the tree line and free of the choking fires. A pool still glittered nearby, as though death did not run rampant below. Barahir laid Angrod down, smoothed golden hair back from his face.

"You've been gravely wounded, my lord."

"I'm dying," Angrod rasped. About his eyes his veins pulsed black, the spider-poison spreading. "Read this," he ordered weakly, proffering a scrap of parchment. It was barely legible, looked to have been torn from a longer letter.

"…pleased to inform you of the imminent birth of your grandson—" Barahir looked up, heart-broken all over again. Angrod had already gone still.

o

The Fen of Serech

The body they left at the bottom of the pool, weighted down as best they could manage, trusting Ulmo's power to keep it from spiders and any other foul creatures. Then Barahir began leading his people to safety. The parchment he kept tucked in his tunic, as Angrod had kept it. He would entrust it and their people to Beren, then return to Dorthonion, and defend it to his last breath, as his lords had done.

They crested the last, low hill before Dorthonion gave way to the Pass of Sirion, and came upon carnage in the stinking fen below. From far off, Barahir recognized the voice of Nómin, calling for aid that was not forth-coming, cut off as he was from his men.

"By the gods, we'll not be late again!" he roared, hearing the answering cry of his men behind him as he plunged down into the marsh.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: These were particularly difficult to write, even with the concession of a 150 word limit instead of a 100 word limit (making this assembly 6 drabbles long, not including the section titles, even though there are only four parts).<p>

Nóm/Nómin was the name given to Finrod by Bëor.

If anyone is wondering, Angaráto is indeed speaking Quenya in Last Rites. The letter, however, is in Sindarin, which is also the language Barahir is speaking.

"By the gods…" throughout Tolkien's mythopoeia, mortal Men are portrayed as thinking of the Valar as gods. While the Edain are supposed to be above this, being educated by the Eldar, I feel that Barahir's had a sufficiently bad day to slip into such a mind frame, if it isn't his normal one.

Keep an eye out for _The Fall of Minas Tirith_, a separate, chaptered story dealing Orodreth's part in the Dagor Bragollach. I should hopefully be posting the first chapter sometime this week (or maybe this weekend. Deadline week at work is crazy).


	23. XXII: Artanáro

Summary: When the smoke clears, his son still needs a name.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 455<p>

His son has his father's eyes, the quick silver-grey that had frightened him as a child. Naltariel had named him for those eyes—Gil-galad, for she said they reminded her of starlight.

Artaher has not yet given his son a name. There was no time to think of such things during the siege of Tol Sirion. Now he has time, and all he can think about is his father. His rare laugh and lingering frown, his head almost always bent over parchment and his fingers perpetually stained with ink.

Ingoldo says that Barahir weighted his father's corpse and sank it in a pool to prevent the spiders from laying their eggs in it, but Artaher cannot picture his father dead. Much less drowned in one of Dorthonion's clear springs, so like the water flashing beneath the Ice long ago, when Father had seemed the one constant in his life.

"Orodreth?" Laegalad prompts carefully; she has been hesitant in his company since their arrival in Nargothrond. It has become easier to slip into Quenya these days, and even when he thinks _Laegalad _it comes out _Naltariel_, but she has yet to confront him over it. It seems, at times, when he mashes the two languages together and her eyes tighten, that she looks to Dorthonion and then back to him, and says nothing.

Her hand brushes his hair back over his shoulder, and her breath is warm at the junction of his neck and shoulder. His father's voice sings out across the Ice in Valmar, creating nonsense lines just to recite them in different dialects. Celeborn's eyes at his aunt's side go cold as he says in blunt Sindarin, "Angrod's son."

"Artanáro," he proclaims. Naltariel does not contradict him.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Artanáro, of course, is the Quenya form of Rodnor, Gil-galad's father-name. For some reason, Tolkien gave Gil-galad a father-name in Quenya, even though he is clear that Gil-galad was born in Beleriand, and certainly after Thingol's Ban (<em>Peoples of Middle-earth <em>350). Clearly, it suits my purposes just fine.


	24. XXIII: Things Fall Apart

Summary: After receiving stewardship of Nargothrond, Orodreth must confront a bitter truth: Nargothrond is no longer safe for the scions of Finarfin.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 465<p>

"I wish I could advise you otherwise," Celebrimbor said heavily from where he was slumped, limbs akimbo, across from him. His eyes had dulled to pale imitations of their sharp grey, and were fixed unseeing at his elbow, as though he could not bear to meet Orodreth's eyes, but Orodreth could muster little sympathy for the Fëanorion. Not when Finduilas sat at his left, crying silently, when only will was keeping Laegalad's tears restrained. When he himself wanted to beat the flagstones until his fists were bloody and scream his throat raw. "I should like to believe the boy to be safe, but…"

"But nothing prevents your kin from sending him the way of Finrod," Orodreth finished when Celebrimbor could not. "How did it go? 'Neither law nor love'?" Celebrimbor flinched, but made no defense.

"Even so," he muttered instead. "And while the Oath is aroused I must agree that it would be best to send at least Gil-galad away."

"Best," Laegalad bit out icily, "would be to send the Himladhrim away. It is a poor measure of wisdom to divide a young child from his parents."

"The Himladhrim are not responsible, Lady," Celebrimbor murmured, rubbing his eyes. "Do not forget that Aratyaro accompanies the King on his errand." He sighed, almost sobbed, and added, "The blame lies solely on the house of Fëanor."

"Your house," Laegalad corrected viciously. "Your uncle and your father."

"Indeed."

"The sons of Fëanor have a great following among the people in any case," Orodreth interjected, as Laegalad looked in no mood to cease tormenting his cousin. "They forsook Finrod in their favor; they would sooner expel me themselves than hear talk of banishing them."

"So you will instead orphan our son among strangers," Laegalad concluded bitterly, some of her iron self-control slipping in the tremble of her lips.

"He need not lose both parents," Celebrimbor said, lifting his head for the first time, the small motion seeming to exhaust him. Orodreth felt his heart, already heavy, pang at what it knew was to come.

"And which of us do you propose to exile?" Laegalad snarled, laying flat her hands on the table. More than his posture, that Celebrimbor answered her attested to his distracted state of mind.

"Orodreth has a duty to Nargothrond—"

"My _husband_ has a duty to his family!" Laegalad cried, standing so suddenly that her chair was turned over. "To his _wife_ and the _children_ he begot!" Finduilas shuddered and dropped her face in her arms on the table, her back heaving with silent sobs. "Do not tell me that I have the greater duty to our children, nor that this pit of vipers deserves more of my husband's care than his own flesh and blood!

"And you—" she whirled on him, face contorting as she sought to rein in her emotions. Orodreth raised his hands over his head, pleading for a reprieve. Laegalad fell silent, but her jaw continued to twitch, her hands curled into fists. He tried in vain to gather his scattered thoughts, put them in order.

"Had my uncle entrusted his kingdom to anyone else, we would all four of us be long gone from here, with any who would follow." The scene flashed again before his eyes; Finrod's stricken expression as Celegorm and Curufin usurped centuries of authority with a hundred words. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to blot out the dismal image.

"As it is, he left before I could voice any misgivings, and I would not now betray his confidence." Not when the whole of his kingdom had done so, not when it would leave Nargothrond's crown to the Fëanorians. "What can I do?" he pleaded. "I lose my son to safety or I risk losing him to the Oath of Fëanor. The one need not be permanent; the other may not come to pass." He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to rub off his exhaustion as he did so. He reached out to Laegalad, only for her to jerk beyond his reach, her lip half-curled in what could not possibly be revulsion. He dropped his hand with a dull twinge to the table.

"Whether you go or stay will be up to the wisdom of your own counsel," he whispered, unable to raise his voice over the pain in his throat. "I have not the strength of will to send you away from me, not even for Gil-galad. Nor the right." Laegalad stared into his eyes for a moment more, and for those bare seconds her expression recalled the tender days of their youth. Then, in a violent motion, she flung her wedding band to the table, where it landed next to Finrod's abandoned crown. His heart, still beating feebly, stopped, and his eyes went dark.

"Choose now," she whispered in the blackness that was his world. "See, these are the things you debate between, laid before you, all pretenses swept aside. Choose now. Which will you keep?"

* * *

><p>Author's Note: <em>The Silmarillion<em> and later versions of the legendarium agree that Gil-galad was sent to the Havens more or less immediately after the Dagor Bragollach. I've tweaked that a bit, given that my timeline puts Gil-galad at only months old by the end of the battle. Having just got their very young son to the safety of Nargothrond, I can't see Orodreth and Laegalad wanting to send him back out into danger to reach the Havens without some internal threat. Thus, I have Gil-galad living in Nargothrond until the deposal of Finrod by Celegorm and Curufin, when Nargothrond is proven to have no defense against the Oath of Fëanor or the Doom of the Noldor.


	25. XXIV: Ereinion

Summary: Orodreth's last impression of his son.

* * *

><p>First Age Year 465<p>

He rejected my farewell kiss, seeming much older than his mere ten years as he solemnly told me that I would never send him away if I loved him. I have had this same conversation with Laegalad, who will not accept that the Fëanorians are untouchable at this time, despite all my reasoning. He rejected his father-name as well, spitting it back in my face like a curse and announcing, "My name is _Gil-galad_," and breaking my heart in the same breath.

I wonder now that I could have once done the same to my father, that he had restrained himself from falling upon his face and weeping on the spot; but of course, I do now as he must have done then. Breathe in, breathe out. Our children must never know their words are like daggers in our hearts. Smile, blink away the tears, allow Celebrimbor to set him up on the horse in front of his mother, for he will not allow me to touch him, even just one last time. But of course this is repayment also, for did I not flee my mother's outstretched arms when Darkness fell in Aman, not then knowing that I would never see her again?

Finduilas loops her arms about one of mine, for I will not let her grasp my hands; she seeks comfort, and their trembling is the only thing that breaks my composure, and would surely set her weeping. Gwindor, her beloved, is also mounting a horse; he will serve as an escort beside Celebrimbor, the only two willing to deprive me of my wife and child. I hate them as fiercely as I hate Morgoth in this moment, for no logic on earth could have moved me to send them away without protection, but of course I am being irrational, so I breathe in and breathe out and keeping smiling, as Finrod did when his people turned on him.

It almost seems simple, this false tranquility, and I think I can go back and take stock of Nargothrond's larders, as my father might have done in Dorthonion, or mediate between the Trees' Friends and the Iron Guild as my uncle so often had done.

But then, because she is my wife and loves me even though she will never again feel affection for me, Laegalad checks her horse at the gate and turns to see me one last time. The dawn's rays silhouette Gil-galad's slender frame in rays of soft gold, bringing out the buried strands of blond in his hair and casting the rest of his face in shadow. Laegalad raises one hand in farewell, and I can feel her sorrow and anger and still-burning love through our bond. Gil-galad remains motionless in front of her.

The last I see of my son, he is a faceless stranger, who might not be a child at all, but a rider far-off, with the sun illuminating his path, and his past, whatever it contained, far behind, lost where it cannot reach him. Even as the tears are finally wrung from the depths of my grieving fëa, I pray.

_Let such be his future._

* * *

><p>Final Notes: So here we are, several years after I initially wrote this story, and it's finally all posted. Of course, the danger of taking so long to post something you wrote years ago is that you mature as a writer, and see places for improvement in your earlier work. So it is with <em>Line of Kings<em> for me. I'm currently in the process of trying to figure out if I should undertake heavy revision of this piece, and what form that revision should take if I do. But despite that, this piece holds a special place in my heart. I'd like to thank everyone who has read and reviewed and stuck with me through my erratic posting schedule.

This is by no means the end of the _Line of Kings_ verse; I'm working on a sequel that follows through with Gil-galad's adventures through to the end of the Second Age. And also possibly a novel-ish length piece taking a look at Valinor at a time when many of the Exilees are being rehoused, and the tensions that result from that. Both are still very deep in the planning stages, but keep an eye out if you're interested.

On a more technical note, yeah, I'm kind of fudging canon a little bit by sending Celebrimbor away from Nargothrond now, when _The Silmarillion _tells us that he remained in Nargothrond to repudiate the deeds of his father and uncle upon their banishment. I balance that out with the argument that this at least provides an explanation for how he avoided dying in the sack of Nargothrond.


End file.
